Effective vaccines for difficult targets such as HIV and MRSA are challenging to develop. One of the chief issues is that these targets have conformational (non-linear) epitopes, which existing vaccine technologies are not able to accurately reproduce. Developed by University of Queensland researchers, the Rigid Antigen Presenting Scaffolds (RAPS) technology can display antigens in a defined structure, allowing presentation of conformational and multimeric epitopes in a vaccine. With its ability to work where traditional approaches have failed RAPS is expected to enhance the development of effective vaccines against a range of clinically important organisms.

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