Traditional vaccines lack specificity in activating the immune system and can take quite a long time to design and produce.

Dr Gunnveig Grødeland at the University of Oslo is developing a DNA Vaccine platform that aims to make vaccines much more specific. DNA can encode the sequence to an antigen fused to a protein that presents it to immune cells specifically, resulting in higher efficacies than traditional vaccines.

DNA is an ideal platform for vaccine development, as it can be rapidly and safely synthesized compared to traditional vaccines. Gunnveig's work has already proven effective in animal tests and the project is keen to spin out. The work is supported by SPARK Norway.

In this episode of BioInnovation Spotlight @ LifeScience ORG, we learn from Gunnveig how her technology works, what has the pandemic and RNA vaccines meant for her innovation, and why she wants to be an entrepreneur.