National Defense Medical Center

Title: Novel polysaccharide nanoparticles as vaccine carriers and adjuvants
Vaccine development is the most effective way to prevent and control infectious diseases. In order to induce a better immune response, it is often necessary to add appropriate adjuvants to vaccine formulations to enhance the pathogenicity of vaccines. In this invention, we investigated the efficacy of fucoidan (FUC)-quaternized chitosan (qCS) nanoparticles (FqC-NPs) as adjuvants for anthrax vaccine adsorbed (AVA). Here, positively and negatively surface-charged FqC-NPs were prepared via polyelectrolyte complexation by varying the mass ratio of FUC and qCS. When cultured with L929, A549 or JAWS II dendritic cells, both charged NPs showed high cell viability, low cytotoxicity and low immunotoxicity. Moreover, we have monitored excellent both charged NPs uptake efficacy by JAWS II cells and observed that combining FqC-NPs with AVA significantly increased the magnitude of IgG-anti-protective antigen titers in A/J mice compared to that by CpG plus AVA or AVA alone. Furthermore, FqC-NPs plus AVA provided a superior survival rate (100%) of A/J mice compared to CpG plus AVA (75%) or AVA alone (50%) following anthrax lethal toxin challenge. The findings support FqC-NPs could be as a potential adjuvant or nano-carrier of AVA for rapid induction of protective immunity.

National Defense Medical Center

The bioelectrical impedance analysis device (BIA) is used to obtain the bioelectrical impedance of the subject. The user interface device is configured to receive the personal data. The processing unit is electrically coupled to the BIA, the storage unit and the user interface device, and activates a BIA prediction model of a group of the storage unit according to the personal data, and the processing unit transmits the BIA. The predictive model converts the bioelectrical impedance, and calculates the estimated body composition data; wherein the BIA predictive model is modeled based on multiple training materials of multiple training testers of the ethnic group.

National Defense Medical Center

Bloodless AI-assisted ECG System to Rapidly Detect Life-threatening Dyskalemia

National Defense Medical Center

Our laboratory has developed two strains of hybridoma against SARS-CoV-2 surface spike proteins, named 8a-1 and 27b-2, which produce highly specific and stable monoclonal antibodies. Both antibodies can specifically identify the corona-virus S-2 protein sequence, and will not cross-react with N and E proteins. After testing, it has good protein stability. Using the pairing of the two monoclonal antibodies, we established successfully immunological detection kits for a lateral flow rapid test to detect SARS-CoV-2 virus in human specimens. In spiked sample, as low as 8 x 10,000 PFU virus of single drop would be accurately quantified. A rapid screening kit was developed that can quickly test viruses within 15 minutes.

National Health Research Institutes

The National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) is a non-profit foundation established by the government with its organization charter created by an Act of Congress (Legislative Yuan) and signed in 1995 by President Teng-hui Lee. Being an autonomous research organization under the supervision of the Department of Health, Executive Yuan, the NHRI is dedicated to the enhancement of medical research and the improvement of health care in this country.

Scientists at the NHRI conduct mission-oriented medical research and investigate many aspects of the basic biomedical sciences, as well as specific diseases. These range from the common problems such as aging, cancer, infectious diseases, mental disorders, occupational diseases, to health policy. It is our hope that the knowledge, experience, and facilities at the NHRI will become important resources to the whole nation in understanding, preventing, and curing diseases. There are several collaborative research projects between the NHRI and medical centers and hospitals. It is anticipated that both public and private sector efforts of the NHRI will help achieve excellence in medical research in Taiwan.

For more information, please visit https://www.nhri.edu.tw/eng/

National Health Research Institutes

a microfluidic-chip based method for generating single cell-derived monoclonal cells

National Health Research Institutes

a microfluidic chip-based method for generating single cell-derived monoclonal cells

National Health Research Institutes/ Dr. Leu-Wei Lo Lab

An Anti-Obesity Nanotechnology to Modulate Oil Absorption In Vivo
In this study, side effects of these drugs were reduced by using a nanomaterial that can adsorb oil and creative solidification. The high surface area (800-1000 m2/g) of mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) makes it suitable as an option for such materials. Silicon dioxide is also biocompatible, and has been widely utilized in food additives and as an anti-acid agent in gastrointestinal medications. Based on the above characteristics, MSN is attractive as a material for combination therapy with Orlistat. Here, we develop and use MSN to reduce the side effects of lipase inhibitor-based anti-obesity drugs, thereby enhancing the utility and market development of these drugs.

National Health Research Institutes/ Lab of Dr. Min-Shi Lee

Enterovirus 71 (EV-A71) and polioviruses belong to enterovirus genus. Based on phylogenetic analysis of the most variable VP1 gene, EV-A71 could be classified into 3 major genogroups (A, B and C) including 11 genotypes (A, B1~B5, and C1~C5). Since 1997, different EV-A71 genotypes have caused life-threatening epidemics with severe neurologic complications in Asian countries, including Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia and China. Therefore, development of EV-A71 vaccines is a national priority in these countries. Currently, five vaccine candidates have been evaluated in clinical trials in China (3 candidates got approval), Singapore (1 candidate in phase one), Taiwan (1 candidate in phase one). Overall, these 5 vaccine candidates could not grow very well (~107 PFU/ml) in cells qualified for vaccine production. In addition, genotypes of these 5 candidates include B2 (Singapore), B4 (Taiwan), and three C4 (China) strains, which are different from the current predominant genotype B5 in Taiwan and South-Eastern Asia. Moreover, these vaccine candidates are not produced using bioreactor culture systems and their productivity could not be scaled up readily. Therefore, we generated high-growth EV-A71 genotype B5 virus which could grow to high titers in Vero cells using microcarrier-based bioreactor culture systems. In rabbit studies, the purified vaccine antigens could induce cross-reactive neutralizing antibody titers against 3 EV-A71 major genogroups. For intellectual property protection, we have obtained patent approval in Taiwan and have filed internal patent applications through PCT (Patent Cooperation Treaty). In addition, we have used the high-growth vaccine strain to generate high neutralizing rabbit antisera and mouse monoclonal antibody to develop quantification method of vaccine antigen and join an international collaboration study organized by the WHO reference lab (UK NIBSC). Moreover, we further used the high-growth vaccine virus to establish reverse genetics which will be further employed to generate high-growth vaccine viruses for other enterovirus serotypes and develop multi-valent EV vaccines.

National Health Research Institutes/Dr. GS Chen's Research Team

The ring high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) system can satisfy the clinically unmet needs through four solutions. (i) The ring transducer can generate ultrasonic beams approximately in parallel to the sternum behind the breast, preventing damage to ribs, muscle or heart. (ii) By tuning the phase of each element in the ring transducer, several intensity patterns are formed. The volumetric ablation of the breast cancer can be performed by switching intensity patterns of the ring transducer and the treatment time is reduced. (iii) The temperature elevation of the skin is minimized since the ring transducer surrounding to the breast has a large acoustic window on the breast surface. (iv) The total number of the element is only 16 and the required channel of the power amplifier is 16 only. The cost and operating complexity are relatively low.