This invention relates to an immunogenic agent comprising a hydrophobic peptide covalently coupled or conjugated to at least one antigenic molecule that facilitates self-assembly of a plurality of the immunogenic agents into an immunogenic complex that has adjuvant properties. The invention also relates to a method of eliciting an immune response in a subject, comprising the step of administering to the subject at least one immunogenic agent or at least one immunogenic complex to thereby elicit an immune response in the subject.

Technologies for the prevention and/or treatment of pneumococcal infections.

The invention relates to a virus-like particle (VLP) based vaccine. The virus-like particle constitutes a non-naturally occurring, ordered and repetitive antigen array display scaffold which can obtain a strong and long-lasting immune response in a subject. The VLP-based vaccine may be used for the prophylaxis and/or treatment of a disease including, but is not limited to, cancer, cardiovascular, infectious, chronic, neurological diseases/disorders, asthma, and/or immune-inflammatory diseases/disorders.

Disclosed in the present invention is a Helicobacter pylori ferritin-based novel coronavirus S protein double-region subunit nanovaccine. According to the present invention, both a receptor binding domain (RBD) and a fusion peptide (FP) of a virus are taken as double antigens and are connected with a Helicobacter pylori multimeric protein (HP_Ferritin) to form a fusion protein RBD-FP-HP_Ferritin, so that antigen multimerization is realized; and an eukaryotic cell expression system is then utilized for expression, so as to form a 24-mer nano-antigen by means of the self-assembly action of the HP_Ferritin. According to the solution, the defect that RBD monomers are insufficient in immunogenicity can be overcome; the obtained vaccine can remarkably improve the level of neutralizing antibodies of a host to viruses; and the generated antibodies have the capacity to strongly prevent the viruses from invading target cells.

The present invention relates to an immunogenic conjugate comprising: a carrier protein and at least one polypeptide having at most 100 amino acids comprising a sequence of 5 to 50 amino acids of interleukin 6 (IL-6) or IL-6 receptor (IL-6R), or a variant sequence having at least 75% identity with the sequence of 5 to 50 amino acids of IL-6 or IL-6R, wherein the polypeptide is covalently linked to the carrier protein and the carrier protein is a non-toxic mutant diphtheria toxin.

A method of producing dendritic gold nanoparticles by combining a gold precursor solution, a reducing agent, and a bifunctional peptide having an amine-rich amino acid sequence into a buffered aqueous solution in a single container, and agitating the mixture causing the formation of the dendritic gold nanoparticles having a surface with a positive charge and a second end portion of the bifunctional peptide exposed on the surface of the dendritic gold nanoparticles. The dendritic gold nanoparticles may be used to deliver therapeutic, diagnostic, and/or immunogenic amino acid sequences as portions of the bifunctional peptide.

Disclosed are compounds for the induction of antigen-specific immune tolerance in a subject, the compounds comprising an antigen, a polymeric linker and a liver targeting moiety, wherein the polymeric linker comprises a terminal end unit lacking each of a dithioester and a dithiobenzoate and wherein the terminal end unit confers improved stability to the compound when in solution.

The present disclosure provides several embodiments of multi-specific antigen binding protein complexes. In some embodiments, the multi-specific antigen binding protein complex is composed of either two or three polypeptide chains that assemble with each other to form het-erodimeric complexes comprising two different Fab regions each capable of binding two different epitopes and comprising an Fc region which is capable of exhibiting Fc effector function, thus having a relatively simple structure compared to certain other multi-specific antibodies. In one embodiment, the multi-specific antigen binding protein complex is activatable as one of the polypeptide chains that compose the protein complex carries a cleavable linker.

The present invention is directed to virus-like particles (VLPs) preferably derived from Qbeta bacteriophage which are engineered to conjugate to derivatives of opioid drugs. The opioid drugs are conjugated at high density to the virus-like particles to achieve long-lasting and high titer antibodies to the drugs of interest. Methods of treatment are also described.

The present invention relates to novel 6-acetylmorphine analogs, and methods for their synthesis and use. Such analogs are designed to provide a convenient linkage chemistry for coupling under mild conditions to a suitable group on a target protein, polypeptide, solid phase or detectable label.