^{Clockwise from top left: Aereas Aung, Michael Fralick, Rob Kozak, Allison McGeer, Beate Sander, Shaun Morris, Mario Ostrowski, William Navarre}

June 20, 2024

By Betty Zou

Eight projects tackling emerging and existing infectious threats are getting a kick-start with funding from the Emerging and Pandemic Infections Consortium 2024 Ignite Grants competition.

The grants, worth $50,000 each for a one-year term, provide seed funding to support early-stage or pilot projects that show great potential in advancing our knowledge of infectious diseases and/or driving innovation in pandemic preparedness and infectious disease management.

Last year’s inaugural competition, which was called Proof-of-Principle Grants, saw five projects funded. Recognizing the key role of seed funding in launching promising new ideas, EPIC close to doubled its support for the Ignite program this year, investing $400,000 in eight projects.

It also expanded the breadth of its support to fund two projects in each of four different research streams: applied and/or translational research, clinical research, fundamental research and population, global and public health research.

“Often times it can be hard to get a new project off the ground because of a lack of dedicated support and resources. By providing critical early-stage funds, our Ignite Grants allow investigators to test their innovative ideas and then enable them to generate the preliminary data they need to be successful in larger funding competitions. Our goal is to make sure important new discoveries will ultimately be used to combat infections,” says Scott Gray-Owen, academic director of EPIC and a professor in U of T’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine.

One of this year’s Ignite Grant recipients is Aereas Aung, an assistant professor in the Institute of Biomedical Engineering. His translational research project is testing an exciting new approach that could significantly improve vaccine effectiveness, particularly against respiratory viruses like SARS-CoV-2 and influenza.

Vaccines today are remarkably effective at protecting against disease, but few can actually prevent an infection from taking hold in the first place by creating what’s called sterilizing immunity. Many researchers believe that for respiratory pathogens, a vaccine that can be inhaled through the nose — where the microbes typically first enter the body — offers the best chance at sterilizing protection.

Aung’s research will test whether targeted delivery of vaccine components called antigens into the lymph node can boost the antibody response generated by intranasal vaccines. To do this, he and his team have created a prototype antigen that can penetrate into the lymph tissues underneath the mucus membrane lining the nose. With funding from EPIC, the researchers will now be able to study their new intranasal immunization approach in mice to determine the effectiveness of the targeting and the strength of the immune response.

“As a new investigator, the funding support provided by the Ignite Grant is highly substantial. It provides more financial security for supporting my trainees and freedom to pursue risky new ideas,” says Aung.

“Our ultimate goal is to enhance the immunity granted by vaccines, resulting in higher levels and longevity of disease-neutralizing antibodies. With recent findings highlighting the need to boost immunity at mucosal surfaces like the nose, we are enthusiastic about using our targeted vaccine technology to achieve potent sterilizing immunity at these surfaces and stop the spread of infectious diseases.”

The Ignite-funded projects span a wide breadth of topics, ranging from the role of a vaginal bacteria in genital inflammation and HIV transmission, to development of metapopulation models for respiratory syncytial virus and other infectious diseases, to new evidence-based definitions of severe acute respiratory infections in children. Surveillance of emerging bacterial threats was also highlighted as a key theme among the funded research, including a pilot project looking at antimicrobial resistance patterns in the neonatal intensive care unit and an Ontario-wide project monitoring non-invasive Group A Streptococcus pyogenes bacterial infections.

To learn more about the 2024 Ignite Grants recipients and their projects, please visit the competition results page.