Selecta Biosciences Inc., which uses technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School, has raised more than $30 million since it was launched about two years ago.

Selecta uses nanotechnology — which builds devices and structures at a scale that is one-thousandth the width of a human hair — to create synthetic particles that mimic viruses and trigger the body’s immune responses to protect against disease.

The nanoparticles, made from biodegradable materials similar to those used in sutures that dissolve, have advantages over traditional vaccines that use inactive viruses to trigger the immune response, Selecta officials said.

The nanoparticles, for example, can precisely target immune cells to prompt a stronger response by the body’s defenses.

“You are mimicking nature’s way of dealing with infectious agents,’’ said Robert L. Bratzler, Selecta’s executive chairman. “We have some very exciting technology that has the potential to leapfrog biological vaccines.’’

Selecta is still years away from putting a product on the market. It must go through lengthy clinical trials to win approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Company officials said they hope to begin the first of three phases of trials next year.

The new financing will allow the company to advance the product to clinical trials. OrbiMed Advisors LLC, a New York investment firm that specializes in health care, is the lead investor in this latest round of fund-raising, Selecta’s third.

Also participating were earlier investors, including Polaris Venture Partners, of Waltham; Flagship Ventures, in Cambridge; NanoDimension, Grand Cayman; and Leukon Investments, Boston.

“We believe Selecta’s synthetic nanoparticle approach will have the potential to deliver safe and more effective vaccines,’’ Carl L. Gordon, OrbiMed’s founding general partner, said in statement

Selecta was founded by three professors who pioneered the technology: Robert Langer of MIT and Omid Farokhzad and Ulrich von Andrian, both of Harvard Medical School.

Some of the basic research goes back two decades, Langer said, but it is only in recent years that advances combining immunology and nanotechnology have made Selecta’s synthetic vaccines possible.

Langer cited four key breakthroughs: the ability to target antigens, which trigger the immune system, directly at cells; the creation of safe nanoparticles; the development of a manufacturing process known as self-assembly to enable commercial scale production; and success in replicating viral structures in synthetic nanoparticles.

In addition to preventing disease, Selecta officials said, their nanoparticle vaccines will be able to treat diseases, such as cancer, at the cellular level.

“These synthetic nanoparticles home right to the proper cell,’’ said Bratzler, Selecta’s executive chairman. “They have promise and potential to provide a big advantage over vaccines made from biological materials.’’

Selecta employs about 20 researchers, primarily chemists, engineers and biologists.