The present disclosure provides novel adjuvants which may be used in combination with one or more antigens to augment, modulate or enhance a host immune response to the one or more antigens. The adjuvants are based on sialic acid binding molecules and may be combined with any type of antigen. The adjuvants may be formulated for mucosal and/or intranasal administration.

Vaccine compositions that may be administered to a subject via the buccal and/or sublingual mucosa are provided. Methods for administration and preparation of such vaccine compositions are also provided.

Methods for treating eye diseases such as dry eye disease (DED) and age-related macular degeneration (AMD) using an IL-20 antagonist that blocks the signaling pathway mediated by IL-20, for example, an antibody that binds IL-20 or an IL-20 receptor.

The present disclosure provides vaccine compositions and methods for inducing a systemic immune response and a mucosal immune response, wherein the vaccine compositions comprise an antigen and a hepatitis B core virus-like particle (HBc VLP) as adjuvant. The vaccine compositions are suitable for administration to the mucosa surface of subject, and are effective in eliciting a protective immune response against infection.

This document provides adenovirus vectors and methods and materials related to using adenovirus vectors. For example, adenoviruses for delivering nucleic acid encoding one or more immunogens (e.g., one or more immunogens associated with a pathogen causing an infection) to cells within a mammal such that the mammal produces an effective immune response against the immunogen(s) are provided.

The present invention shows that intranasal administration of E1/E3-defective adenovirus particles may confer rapid and broad protection against viral and bacterial pathogens in a variety of disease settings. Protective responses lasted for many weeks in a single-dose regimen in animal models. When a pathogen-derived antigen gene was inserted into the E1/E3-defective adenovirus genome, the antigen-induced protective immunity against the specific pathogen was elicited before the adenovirus-mediated protective response declined away, thus conferring rapid, prolonged, and seamless protection against pathogens. In addition to E1/E3-defective adenovirus, other bioengineered non-replicating vectors encoding pathogen-derived antigens may also be developed into a new generation of rapid and prolonged immunologic-therapeutic (RAPIT).

This invention relates to the delivery of heterologous peptides or proteins such as therapeutic peptides, therapeutic proteins or antigens to mucosal sites using vesicles derived from the outer membrane of commensal bacteria, recombinant bacteria capable of producing such vesicles, and methods for the production of such vesicles. The invention further relates to an inducible expression system for use in recombinant bacteria.

The present disclosure provides vaccine compositions and methods for inducing a systemic immune response and a mucosal immune response, wherein the vaccine compositions include an antigen and a hepatitis B core virus-like particle (HBc VLP) as an adjuvant. The vaccine compositions are suitable for administration to the mucosal surface of a subject, and are effective in eliciting a protective immune response against infection.

The present invention relates to novel peptides, compositions and uses thereof useful in tissue permeabilization, in particular in the context of treatment of cancer prevention and/or treatment or induction of an immune response, in particular via mucosal vaccination or anti-opioid treatment.

The present invention provides a mucosal immunomodulator comprising, as an active ingredient, at least one selected from the group consisting of compounds represented by the following formula (1), compounds represented by the following formula (2) and compounds represented by the following formula (3), and salts thereof. ##STR00001##