Directly Programming the Immune System for Rapid Protection

The recent COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the threat to soldiers from infectious agents. Vaccines have long been the most effective and scalable means of addressing such threats. However, injecting antigen to drive the immune system to produce protective antibodies and T-cells often requires weeks to months before an effective immune response can be mounted given the multiple, complex steps involved in the process. It is difficult to know ahead of time what antigens will generate the most effective immune response in the shortest amount of time. We propose developing therapeutic synthetic cell technology that would allow entry much further along in the immune response pathway in order to achieve greater predictability, control and speed of the ultimate immune response. That is, we propose to develop synthetic cell technology that would allow for the direct and rapid programing of the human immune system. This would be a radical advance in medical technology that would have a transformative effect on force protection from viral and other biological threats.