Rapid Vaccine Discovery System
Minimizing the time from pathogen discovery to vaccine delivery
In today’s global economy, international travel is commonplace, facilitating the rapid spread of infectious diseases on a universal scale. Time spent in close quarters with other people on airplanes, buses, and trains can encourage the transmission of viruses and bacteria between people.
The emergence and subsequent threat of SARS, H5N1 avian flu, and now the H1N1 swine flu, has taught us that our current methods of vaccine development are inadequate for outpacing the spread of infectious diseases. With the ever-present threat of new or mutating viruses looming in the not-so-distant future, a new platform for vaccine development must emerge.
As a means to this end, our institute is engaged in innovations toward rapid vaccine development. The platform will be universal in its methods requiring only the pathogen of interest to tailor the vaccine to the disease. A major benefit of improving the vaccine development process will be the ability to overcome the complexity of infectious organisms. For example, there is no vaccine for malaria because of its high rate of evolution. Two strains of malaria parasites can have vastly different fingerprints so there is no universal point of attack for a vaccine to exploit.
While overcoming the challenges of producing a malaria vaccine is a future goal of this research, the development process is being streamlined on a smaller scale by addressing the agricultural need for a vaccine to the African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV). This highly contagious disease (unrelated to the current H1N1 swine flu) is responsible for high mortality in pigs and is now a threat to livestock worldwide.
ASFV, previously confined to sub-Saharan Africa, made a jump to the Republic of Georgia in 2007, and then found its way into Armenia, which gave neighboring countries concern about their swine populations. Without a vaccine or a cure, the only way to prevent the spread of the disease is to destroy infected animals.
A new, high-throughput method to create vaccines is needed that will take minimal time from microbe discovery to vaccine delivery. This ability to overcome the complexities of some infectious organisms will change the way we face communicable disease worldwide.
