Project Seeks to Develop a New Generation of Stable Liquid Vaccines

A five year, 10 million dollar research project has been launched to develop potent, stable liquid vaccines for diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS. The project is funded by a grant from the Foundation for the U.S. National Institutes of Health through the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, a program of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Investigators from Oxford University (UK) will collaborate with colleagues at Cambridge Biostability Ltd. (Cambridge, UK). The Oxford research group will use viral vectors to transport genes that will stimulate the immune system to provide a strong immune response against the targeted diseases. Cambridge Biostability will modify successful vaccines for storage in a stable liquid form that does not require refrigeration.

Dr. Adrian Hill, professor of human genetics at Oxford University, said, "A major impediment to the development of new vaccines for many major pathogens is not the lack of relevant antigens but the difficulty in inducing a strong protective immune response. We have already made good progress towards identifying appropriate vectors, adjuvants, and antigens, and welcome Cambridge Biostability aboard to explore formulating these into thermo-stable liquid vaccines.”

Dr. Bruce Roser, chief scientific advisor at Cambridge Biostability, said, "The project uses recent advances in molecular vaccinology to create the vector constructs for use as new generation of vaccines. At present these have to be stored in the freezer. Our role is to use our stabilizing technology so that these vectors can become liquid vaccines stable at room temperature and ready to use without reconstitution or need for refrigeration. These sophisticated vectors present new challenges to Cambridge Biostability, but we will build on the success we have already had with stabilizing the notoriously fragile measles vaccine as a ready-to-inject liquid.”



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Oxford University
Cambridge Biostability