Over summer 2022, I had the incredible opportunity to conduct research at a full-time internship at the University of Washington's Institute for Protein Design (IPD) alongside my amazing mentor Chloe Adams in the King Lab. Since then, I've continued on at the IPD as a undergraduate researcher during the school year! The project Traditional vaccines use live or weakened pathogens to elicit an effective adaptive immune response, but these vaccines can lack safety (i.e., for immunocompromised individuals). Subunit vaccines–which display characteristic components of pathogens–are safe, stable, and readily engineered, but struggle to elicit a strong immune response. These next-generation vaccines require “sidekicks” called adjuvants (substances that stimulate the immune system) to increase efficacy. I work on designing and testing de novo mini-proteins to bind Toll-like Receptor (TLR) proteins with the goal of providing new adjuvants to improve vaccine efficacy. |