AIM: Assessing Immune Memory

Military service members rely on effective vaccination for the prevention of communicable disease as well as to guard against biothreat exposure. Many current vaccines lack durability (i.e., do not provide effective protection over long periods of time), and there are multiple pathogens and threats that lack prophylactic options altogether. 

The current state of vaccine durability assessment is to take a “wait and see” approach, largely owing to ignorance of mechanisms underlying immune memory, as well as an inability to measure the cellular contributors that invoke long-lasting immune protection. Formation of immune memory is a complex physiological process characterized by a diverse array of cellular interactions and signaling processes.

The Assessing Immune Memory (AIM) program seeks to determine early on if a vaccine candidate will later provide long-lasting immune protection in humans, a current impossibility that would benefit the warfighter and nation immensely. 

To accomplish this goal, AIM will take a systems-level view of the response to vaccination and dissect the mechanisms that lead to long lasting protection. This systems-level understanding will then be implemented as a tool that can predict vaccine duration of protection and the associated mechanisms without waiting years for retrospective determination.