In our group we work with CHIKV 181/25 which is a attenuated strain (BSL-2 pathogen) that at some point was tested as a possible vaccine candidate. However, this strain while being attenuated still can causes some strong secondary effects that are not ideal in a vaccine.

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   In our CHIKV assembly projects we have generated more than 30 CHIKV mutants with infectivies that are considerably lower thant CHIKV 181/25 and that produce a large fraction of aberrant viral particles. Thus, the M.Sc. student Libertad Nieto-Espinosa in collaboration with the immunologists Prof. Adriana Monsivais Urenda and Dra. Elena Martíne-Shio, is focusing on trying to find which of these mutants generate the least pro-inflamatory response in PBMCs.

 

    This project is based on using defective virions to generate a less strong viral infections and a more balance immune response and is the culmitaiton of different projects, such as the assembly part of our group and also with our expertise on determining how microchondrial damage can be related to the type of immune response. This project is based on an hypothesis that we have put forward in which Alphaviruses might make mistakes during assembly as an attenuation mechanism.

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Update: November 2025.