Sabine Den Roover

Short overview of academic career
•    Graduated at VUB in 2020 as a pharmacist (MSc Pharmaceutical Care)
•    PhD student at NAVI since November 2020 under supervision of prof. Joeri Aerts

With around 100 million people infected, HIV is among the most widespread viruses in the world. The use of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) has been proven to be successful in controlling virus replication. However, patient’s immune system remains dysfunctional increasing the risk of infections and non-AIDS-related morbidities. Despite the fact that ex vivo modified dendritic cells based therapeutic vaccines have shown to be very promising, several disadvantages are associated with this approach. The development of a patient specific cellular vaccine requires a significant expertise and specialized infrastructure. Therefore, our research group, under supervision of prof. Joeri Aerts, are looking into the possibilities to design an mRNA-based therapeutic vaccine against HIV. Due to their extraordinary properties, a growing interest has awoken in using self-amplifying mRNA (sa-mRNA), derived from alphaviruses, as a potent vaccine candidate. Sa-mRNA have the capacity of self-amplification due to the viral replicase and the replacement of the viral structural genes by the transgene of interest. This way, a high antigen production in vivo is induced. However, in order to obtain efficient delivery, appropriate formulation is required. Therefore, several candidate nanoparticles for efficient delivery of sa-mRNA via the appropriate route will be evaluated. 

The objective of my PhD research is to evaluate an in nanoparticle-encapsulated sa-mRNA-based vaccination as a novel therapeutic approach against HIV. Several nanoparticle candidates, among which polyelectrolyte nanoparticles, will be evaluated on their potency to deliver sa-mRNA efficiently but also to investigate whether the in nanoparticle-encapsulated sa-mRNA are able to induce immune activation and functional immune responses.