Vaccine development

Smoother development of safe, effective vaccines.

Find and select high quality antigens faster for an efficient, smooth vaccine development process.

Select high quality candidates

Develop effective broad-spectrum vaccines that contain multiple high potential immunogenic protein fragments  of the target pathogen

Predict immune responses

Understand which immunopeptides are presented by different patient groups.

Speed up the R&D process

Run analyses fast, with guaranteed results at speed.

About the development of safe vaccines

Vaccine development aims to prevent the spread of infectious diseases by providing immunity to individuals against specific pathogens. Despite their emerging importance and the introduction of innovative technologies, the development of vaccines remains a complex and challenging process.

Overall, the identification of effective antigen fragments that ensure broad-spectrum protection against the target pathogen along with the high costs and the high risk of failure, tend to complicate the process.

Optimizing vaccinee development with immunopeptidomics

Immunopeptidomics involves the identification and characterization of peptides (antigens) presented by major histocompatibility complex (MHC) molecules.

ImmuneSpec’s advanced immunopeptidomics platform allows thorough analysis of all pathogenic immunogenic protein fragments in a faster and more accurate way.

By analyzing the ensemble of immune peptides presented by infected cells or in samples from infected patients, researchers can identify the best epitopes for the development of broad-spectrum vaccines against the target pathogen. By incorporating both MHC I and MHC II associated peptides, the resulting vaccine will trigger robust CD4 and CD8 responses.

This approach optimizes vaccine development and selects high-quality leads through the identification of true in vivo antigens. Ultimately, it leads to a more efficient research and development stage, smoother clinical trials, and faster market approval.

Collaborating with ImmuneSpec

A renewed approach to unlock immunogenic regions of immunopeptides for the development of safe, effective vaccines and therapeutics.

Day 0

Project kickoff & preparation

Discuss project needs & prior research.

Starting off on the right foot.

At ImmuneSpec, we begin by understanding your project goals in a discussion. Our discovery meeting covers project type, target peptides (known/unknown), HLA-type of interest and required input material. Following this, we prepare for the project, set-up experimental design and establish  the databases.

During the kickoff, we usually discuss:

Project information

Sample details

  • Deadlines
  • Objectives
  • Specific requirements
  • Sample intake details
  • Sample amounts
  • Other additional data/ materials
Day 1-14

Sample intake & preparation

Preparing samples & lab setup.

Prepping well, is half the work.

After the project kickoff, the second step involves delivering your samples to us. As the nature of the samples varies depending on the specific project, we always make sure to discuss storage, handling and (bio)safety requirements.

Project information

  • How will the samples be prepared
  • Requirements for immunogenicity testing, neo-antigen discovery or vaccine development
Day 15-28

Affinity  purification and MS analysis

Executing on the laboratory work and data analysis.

Analyzing the samples.

After  purification, immune peptides are measured by using a TimsTOF SCP Instrument  coupled to an Evosep One chromatography system. Following the measurements, advanced algorithms are deployed to match the obtained MS  spectra with the corresponding protein sequence in the database.

Lab hardware

Lab software

  • Evosep One
  • TimsTOF SCP
  • Peaks 11
  • Spider search
  • Western blot analysis
  • Size distribution of identified peptides
  • Amount of immunepeptides that match with reference proteins
  • MHC Motif clustering

Project information

Day 28-35

Report generation

Turning data into ready-to-use insights.

Answers to your questions.

Upon delivery of the report, a dedicated meeting is scheduled to present the results and guide you through the report, elucidate the significance of the obtained findings, provide expert interpretation, and offer valuable recommendations for the next steps in advancing your project.

Results & files overview

Experimental set-up overview

  • List of peptides identified
  • List of identified peptides matching target proteins
  • Access to complete database
  • Sample overview per experiment
  • Western blot analysis
  • Peptide size distribution
  • MHC Motif clustering

Project information

Day 28-35

Discussion & next steps

Closing up, and onward.

Interpretation & presentation.

Upon delivery of the report, a dedicated meeting is scheduled to present the results and guide you through the report, elucidate the significance of the obtained findings, provide expert interpretation, and offer valuable recommendations for the next steps in advancing your project.

"I  was blown away by the level of expertise, the great communication, thought partnership and superior results. ImmuneSpec was able to handle highly complex experimental designs, large numbers of samples and provide the highest peptide yields, while being faster than any other company we have worked with in the past."

Daniel Leventhal

Generate Biomedicines

Because antigen discovery for the large and complex parasite ‘Leishmania’ has known a deadlock for many decades, we approached the ImmuneSpec team to undertake immunopeptidomics analysis on skin biopsies and organ aspiration samples from leishmania patients. They tackled the challenging starting material with great enthusiasm and successfully created the first-ever mapping of biologically presented peptides in leishmaniasis patients. This will significantly expedite vaccine development for this neglected tropical disease affecting remote and impoverished communities.

Wim Adriaensen

Institute of Tropical Medicine Antwerp

“We are excited to partner with an outstanding team of scientists who provide cutting-edge immunopeptidomics services with remarkable flexibility and timely delivery”

Sofie Pattijn

ImmunXperts

"Encouraged by recent publications that many lncRNA-derived peptides could be more precisely detected with HLA-I peptidomics, our team reached out to the ImmuneSpec team. We selected the team among a range of companies as they provide full service - from MHC complex purification to refining MS results for identification of peptides with highest quality. They have access to one of the most precise MS instruments for such specific scientific questions and are very dedicated to give exhaustive information and are very proactive on all the steps of analysis."

Antonin Morillon

Institut Curie

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