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Vaccines

Floss-based vaccination

Nature Reviews Bioengineering volume 3, page 726 (2025)Cite this article

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Vaccines, commonly delivered via injection, are effective in preventing infectious diseases. However, compliance is limited by the risk of unsafe injections, as well as needle pain and/or phobias. Now, writing in Nature Biomedical Engineering, Harvinder Singh Gill and team present a floss-based vaccination system that can be self-administered, simply by flossing, into a mucosal membrane called the junctional epithelium.

The team tested their vaccination system in rodents by coating floss first with ovalbumin (a model antigen), then with inactive influenza virus, and finally with a nanoparticle influenza vaccine. Each condition stimulated protective immune responses. Notably, the floss-based nanoparticle vaccine was also able to protect mice against a lethal dose of H1N1pdm09, an influenza virus strain, with 100% of vaccinated mice surviving, compared with 0% of unvaccinated mice.

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Change history

  • 15 September 2025

    In the version of the article initially published, Harvinder Singh Gill’s name appeared incorrectly (as Harvinger) and has now been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

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  1. Nature Reviews Bioengineering https://www.nature.com/natrevbioeng/

    Caroline Beyer

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  1. Caroline Beyer
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Correspondence to Caroline Beyer.

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Beyer, C. Floss-based vaccination. Nat Rev Bioeng 3, 726 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-025-00365-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44222-025-00365-8

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