VACCINE MACHINE: The pods are self-contained clean rooms that have either HEPA or ULPA filtration. They require only an electrical hookup and chilled water from the outside. Standard modules are 5.5 by 13 meters and provide a 5.5- by 7.6-meter working environment, gown dressing areas and a separate mechanical support area. Modules provide 2.4 to 5.5 meters of height depending on the need.
Image: © THE TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY SYSTEM
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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
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The H1N1 virus's rapid spread worldwide last year exposed the weaknesses in the global system for swiftly developing, manufacturing and distributing vaccines for newly identified strains of influenza. In Texas, researchers are attacking the first two of these problems through Project GreenVax, which will use a plant-based approach to vaccine development and a modular manufacturing environment that can scale quickly as vaccine demand grows.
Project GreenVax is led by the Texas Plant-Expressed Vaccine Consortium, a joint venture of The Texas A&M University System and pharmaceutical facility technology maker G-Con, LLC, both located in College Station, Texas. The consortium is investing $21 million in GreenVax to go along with the $40 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
In the course of just seven months last year the spread of H1N1 influenza worsened from an outbreak specific to Mexico and the United States to a global pandemic and U.S. national emergency. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that, by the end of the year, H1N1 was responsible for more than 12,200 deaths and had turned up in 208 countries. Although the first cases were reported in April, the first vaccine doses did not start shipping until October.
The WHO's Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on immunization projected in October that it would take the world's labs 12 months to produce about three billion doses of H1N1 vaccine. GreenVax's initial test run is expected to produce 10 million doses of H1N1 vaccine in 12 months using tobacco plants to develop the antibodies. If successful, the researchers say their facility alone could be scaled up to produce 100 million vaccine doses per month.
Breaking a few eggs
Most of the H1N1 vaccines were produced using chicken eggs. Scientists crack the shell and inject the influenza virus into the fluid surrounding the embryo. Ideally, the embryo is infected and the virus multiplies. After several days of incubation the eggs are opened and the virus is removed, purified and used to make the vaccine. It takes about two weeks to produce a flu vaccine using an egg, and the yield is not very high. In order to produce 300 million doses of a vaccine, egg-based production would require some 900 million eggs, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In the plant-based approach, scientists instead infect a plant's leaves with a virus and then grind them up and separate out the antigens produced. Plants offer several potential advantages, says Ted Ross, an associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Vaccine Research (CVR). They can be grown quickly and cheaply and have the potential to produce more vaccine per plant than is possible per egg, he says. Still, despite more than a decade of experimentation, he adds, "I don't know of any approved vaccines made using the plant-based approach."
Plants can be very good biofactories, says B. Brett Finlay, a biochemistry and molecular biology professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. However, one problem is that proteins cultivated in plants might be different than those cultivated in animal cells (or a chicken embryo) and not necessarily effective in humans, he adds. "Also, standard FDA rules for plant product use in humans are not as well worked out."
Facilitating the plan
To support its work, GreenVax will begin construction next week on a new 13,500 square-meter biotherapeutic production facility. The facility is essentially a "tilt-wall" warehouse—built using precast concrete walls—that can be constructed in eight weeks, says Brett Giroir, vice chancellor for research for the A&M System and executive director of the university's Institute for Innovative Therapeutics (IIT).
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12 Comments
Add Comment"scientists instead infect a plant's leaves with a virus"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't take such short-cuts in explaining the method. Without using the "plant-based approach" link, a young or otherwise naive reader skimming the article will think that plants can be infected with human viruses.
Anything based on plant is always a good idea. By using plant based vaccine the virus wont have a chance or a way to get over the vaccine and I doubt that it will have any bad side effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo worry, I'm still waiting on the last one! But wait, ooops, got away. But let's see, if we bill the population for the last pandemic, we can cost share the next one to foot the bill on the new one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo wait, let's release a crisis to scare them first. Then the Obama administration can over reacte and force it onto the public so that we can double bill the people. Yeah that's the ticket Obama, double bill the people, and we get goal sharing paychecks. That's the ticket. Double bill, and crisis.
before tossing a bunch of money(technical term;-) into this... wouldn't it be a good idea to be able to produce just one injectable dose in a lab first....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisR&D accounts for most of the costs. Once they get in reach of lab testing, most of the footwork will already have been done.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut we need to understand that just by giving a person a vaccine isnt going to make their lives better, because of the population keep increases and then the poor people will need money-food,clean water,shelter,etc which inreturn will increase the population yet again. What we need is to encourage the people to have less children and/or adopt(2-3 should be max)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr we could create a fake epidemic, then sterolize the masses via vacine. That would solve the problem. Oh wait, they tryed that with the H1N1 false epidemic. Funny how this article fails to mention that regular flu kills 50,000 per year in the U.S. alone. Far less than the 12,000 deaths the article mentioned, caused by swineflu.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat kind of <a href="http://www.paylesspestcontrol.net">pest control</a> are they using to take care of these plants? They need to make sure they can protect these if they're so important. Last thing we need are contaminated vaccines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere's no way that going to the dentist would be as scary as these vaccine machines.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.eastondental.com/
Interesting post! I wondered how they made the vaccines and I never would have guessed they would use eggs! Thanks for the post! <a href="http://www.svmutah.com/category/provo-mortgage">provo mortgage</a>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisR&D accounts for most of the costs. Once they get in reach of lab testing, most of the footwork will already have been done.<a href="http://www.liftitbest.com/services/concrete-lifting-utah">concrete lifting</a>
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the post. The spread of disease is not something to be taken lightly, and I wonder how it will be dealt with in the future. At least my <a href="http://www.allgrunn.com/auto.html">auto insurance west valley</a> has will not be a concern anymore... you know, if it all comes down. Thanks again!
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