Adam Frederik Sander Bertelsen

Primære forskningsområder

At Centre for Medical Parasitology, University of Copenhagen, I have been involved with the development of anti-malaria vaccines. During this work I have developed a generic and easy-to-use technology for developing efficient vaccines against both infectious- and noncommunicable chronic diseases. The technology employs “virus-like particles” (VLPs) which are enabled to bind efficiently to various vaccine antigens via a genetically engineered binding-tag on the VLP surface. By simply mixing the tagged VLPs with an antigen of choice (genetically fused to a complementary peptide tag) – VLPs are (within minutes) decorated by the antigen, which is displayed at high density on the VLP surface. It is obvious that this very versatile and cost-effective way of making a VLP based vaccine from any complex antigen could present a paradigm shift in future vaccine design and we foresee a very close race between research teams and industry to be the first to publish efficacy data using this platform. Three patent applications have currently been filed based on this technology.

                      We are currently expanding this technology by utilizing the same VLPs as containers for delivery of different cargos. Cargo molecules (toxin, siRNA, CRISPR, fluorophores etc.) are efficiently delivered in the “stomach” of VLPs where they are protected against enzymes, and the multivalent display of a specific cell-targeting molecule on the VLP surface provides unprecedented specificity in the delivering of cargos to cells in vivo. Therefore, the ability to efficiently package cargos inside VLPs in combination with the unique ability to decorate VLPs with different targeting molecules, together, provide a state-of-the-art system for in vivo delivery of cargos and has great potential for e.g. treatment of cancer.

CV

English CV