Source::Xinhuanet
SYDNEY,
Australian researchers have found a new approach to overcoming a major problem in the traditional way of making novel vaccines, paving the way for rapid deployment of safe vaccines against new emerging respiratory pathogens, such as the COVID-19 virus.
Released on Tuesday, the study, led by Professor Richard Payne at the University of Sydney and Professor Warwick Britton at the Centenary Institute in Australia demonstrated the candidate tuberculosis (TB) vaccine based on their technology triggered a strong immune response in mice.
The only current vaccine against TB is based on the live bacterium, which has been found posing significant health risks for immunocompromised patients, particularly for people living with HIV/AIDS. The vaccines that are based on synthesized parthenogen protein have been shown to be very safe to use. However, they need to be used together with enhancers, or adjuvants, to make them effective.
"The challenge is to ensure that our immune cells see both the protein and adjuvant simultaneously," said joint first author Dr. Anneliese Ashhurst from the University of Sydney."To overcome this difficulty, for the first time we have developed a method that synthesizes the protein with an attached adjuvant as a single molecule," said the researcher.With the protein permanently binding to the adjuvant, new vaccines now can be wholly synthesized in the laboratory, streamlining the time-consuming process of animal testing for candidate vaccines.
"We don't need to grow the actual pathogen in the lab to make the vaccine," Ashhurst said."Using this new method, we can rapidly and safely synthesize highly pure vaccines in the lab and take them straight into animal models for pre-clinical testing," Ashhurst said.
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