Subventions et des contributions :

Subvention ou bourse octroyée s'appliquant à plus d'un exercice financier. (2017-2018 à 2020-2021)

Vaccination is the most effective way to prevent deadly human diseases. Despite this, global vaccination coverage continues to be a challenge and concern for public health. A major barrier to maximizing this coverage remains the ability to reliably produce sufficient vaccine doses in a timely manner. This is highlighted (but not restricted to) the shortcomings of the 2009 pandemic H1N1 vaccination campaign and the more recent Yellow Fever crisis in Angola. As a solution to this, we have discovered and developed viral sensitizer technology (VST), a growing collection of compounds with the potential to improve industrial-scale vaccine production with little to no added infrastructure costs. We have successfully demonstrated that VST can enhance by over 10-fold the production of viral vaccines. As a result, we have entered into collaborations with companies such as Sanofi Pasteur, a world leader in vaccine manufacturing, to evaluate the impact of VST for some of their products. Based on promising results, we now aim to determine whether VST can boost the production of Influenza, Rotavirus, and Yellow Fever virus vaccines. Specifically, we aim to (1) evaluate VST impact on yields from cell-based culture of Influenza, Rotavirus, and Yellow Fever vaccine strains (2) determine the optimal formulation for VST industrial/scale-up implementation and (3) assess the quality of the resulting vaccine. To achieve this, our experienced team will develop novel high throughput assays to rapidly identify promising viral sensitizer formulations. We will work with Sanofi Pasteur to implement VST in scale-up processes. In parallel, we will synthesize small molecule derivatives of viral sensitizers that we will use to develop mass spectrometry methods to track viral sensitizers, identify their metabolites, and follow them through the vaccine manufacturing process. Short term, this project will help train upwards of 30 highly qualified personnel in Canada. Long term, we expect that VST will reduce the cost and increase the availability of vaccines globally. Sanofi Pasteur, a global player with major R&D presence in Canada, is a strategic partner in this endeavour that will maximize technological and economic impacts. x000D
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