The SNAP (Spontaneous Nanoliposome Antigen Particleization) platform technology is a unique liposome-based system that functions as a potent vaccine adjuvant designed to address functional and practical limitations facing vaccine development.

Recombinant proteins and peptides represent a safe and simple method of vaccine production with the added benefits of defined antigenicity, rapid manufacturing and scale up. However, recombinant proteins often fail to produce a robust immune response, leading to a lack of protection against the disease of interest.  In order to generate a viable immune response, antigens are often coupled to immunogenic carriers,  nanoparticles, or engineered into virus-like particles, a labor-intensive process with significant detriments for vaccine development and manufacturing. The SNAP platform seeks to address these limitations by providing a novel nanoparticle platform that has the functional simplicity of conventional vaccine adjuvants.

The SNAP approach involves simple incubation of His-tagged antigens with SNAP-liposomes (Figure 1A), leading to the insertion of the His-tagged antigen into the bilayer and coordination with cobalt chelated in the porphyrin lipid, forming a His-tag membrane anchor (Figure 1B).