ciVAX vaccines combine two technologies that are currently in clinical development for other applications, and that together enable the capture of immunogenic antigens from a broad spectrum of pathogens and their incorporation into immune cell-recruiting biomaterial scaffolds. Paulson School for Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering developed a biomaterial-based infection vaccine (ciVAX) approach as a solution that could be broadly applied to this pervasive problem. Now, as reported in Nature Biomedical Engineering, a multi-disciplinary team of researchers at the Harvard John A. Nearly 270,000 Americans die as a result of sepsis 1 in 3 patients who dies in a hospital has sepsis.” However, for the most common bacterial pathogens that cause sepsis and many other diseases, still no vaccines are available. According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (DCD), “each year, at least 1.7 million adults in America develop sepsis. Effective vaccines could act as a bulwark to prevent many bacterial infections and some of their most severe consequences, including sepsis. According to the CDC, “nearly 270,000 Americans die as a result of sepsis (and) one in three patients who dies in a hospital has sepsis.” Credit: Shutterstock/Kateryna KonĬurrent clinical interventions for infectious diseases are facing increasing challenges due to the ever-rising number of drug-resistant microbial infections, epidemic outbreaks of pathogenic bacteria, and the continued possibility of new biothreats that might emerge in the future. Sepsis is caused by pathogenic bacteria (in blue) in the bloodstream, and can be fatal if not treated quickly.