NIH: Advanced vaccine technology will limit future outbreaks
Scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases are working toward the development of a novel vaccine technology in an effort to improve any public health response to infectious disease threats. In a recent perspective in The Journal of the American Medical Association, the experts highlighted innovations that could significantly shorten the typical decades-long vaccine development timeline.
NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health.
Historically, vaccines against viral diseases have used live-attenuated (weakened) viruses or inactivated whole viruses to induce protective immune responses. The development process often takes as many as 20 years or more and requires virus cultivation, animal model testing, product formulation, immunogenicity testing and years of costly clinical trials.
However, substantial technological advances of the past decade, such as synthetic vaccinology and platform manufacturing, have helped expedite the process and shorten manufacturing time, allowing clinical evaluation to begin sooner, according to the authors. Synthetic vaccinology uses information from viral gene sequencing to create DNA and mRNA molecules encoding viral proteins.
Because advancements in vaccine technology does not require replicating “live” viruses, it does not need to be done in high-level containment facilities when developing vaccines for highly pathogenic viruses.
Once a vaccine platform is established, such as that for DNA or mRNA vaccines, potentially it can be applied to multiple pathogens, especially within virus classes or families. For example, NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center quickly developed a candidate DNA vaccine for Zika virus with the same platform used previously for a related flavivirus, West Nile virus.
NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health.
Historically, vaccines against viral diseases have used live-attenuated (weakened) viruses or inactivated whole viruses to induce protective immune responses. The development process often takes as many as 20 years or more and requires virus cultivation, animal model testing, product formulation, immunogenicity testing and years of costly clinical trials.
However, substantial technological advances of the past decade, such as synthetic vaccinology and platform manufacturing, have helped expedite the process and shorten manufacturing time, allowing clinical evaluation to begin sooner, according to the authors. Synthetic vaccinology uses information from viral gene sequencing to create DNA and mRNA molecules encoding viral proteins.
Because advancements in vaccine technology does not require replicating “live” viruses, it does not need to be done in high-level containment facilities when developing vaccines for highly pathogenic viruses.
Once a vaccine platform is established, such as that for DNA or mRNA vaccines, potentially it can be applied to multiple pathogens, especially within virus classes or families. For example, NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center quickly developed a candidate DNA vaccine for Zika virus with the same platform used previously for a related flavivirus, West Nile virus.