physIQ and CellCarta Collaborate on Personalized Approach to Vaccine Development

Digital medicine company physIQ and precision medicine service company CellCarta announced on March 17, 2022 a collaboration on a study to potentially revolutionize vaccine development through a more precise, personalized approach.

The study, called the VIII (Vaccine-Induced Inflammation Investigation) Study, will focus on early, individualized human responses to vaccines as pharma companies release vaccines at a faster pace. Physiology and immune system activation will be monitored remotely at all times using medical-grade biosensors. An artificial intelligence (AI)-based digital platform and immunologic biomarkers allow for individualized baselines to be established by detecting subtle changes within hours after vaccination. These changes have the potential to be linked to long-lasting immune responses to vaccinations.

This precise approach will be able to identify how an individual’s own immune system responds to a vaccine, which offers a new way to measure vaccine efficacy and safety. The VIII study will also potentially be able to evaluate the capacity of a vaccine to product common, expected adverse reactions, as well as the ability of cells/tissues to provoke an immune response.

“Our goal is to provide tools that help accelerate the therapeutic development of personalized vaccine regimens by looking at the full immune response. This is important because we know there are unique differences in how people react to all vaccines,” said Steven Steinhubl, MD, physIQ chief medical officer and principal investigator for the study, in a press release. “By using highly reliable, 510(k)-cleared wearable biosensors instead of consumer devices, we’re able to continuously track multiple medical-grade physiological and behavioral metrics collected during activities of daily living. This near real-time capture of patient data potentially allows us to rapidly correlate physiological changes to immune responses and minimize possible adverse reactions early.”

Source: CellCarta