SaliVax

SaliVax is an FHF funded project (https://www.fhf.no/prosjekter/prosjektbasen/901760/) that explores the possibility of making a DNA vaccine against salmon louse that utilizes salmon louse proteins important in the host-parasite interaction. The salmon louse has exocrine glands that produce immunosuppressive components secreted onto the salmon's skin during an infestation. In this way, the lice can sit relatively undisturbed while they feed on the salmon's skin and blood, without activating a detrimental immune response.

In SaliVax, we are working on implementing a number of such salmon louse immunosuppressive proteins into a DNA vaccine, and further characterizing mucosal and systemic antibody responses in the salmon after vaccination. The hope is that this will provide antibodies that inhibit the louses’ immunosuppressive proteins, so that the salmon itself is able to mount a protective immune response. We are therefore dependent on a high antibody titer in the salmon's mucus, hence, this project will also test a number of optimizations to the vector to see if it is possible to increase this.