Tokyo (SCCIJ) – The race for a vaccine against the new lung disease is in full swing. What usually takes years could happen much faster this time due to global efforts. The winner of this race may be the University of Bern if it can keep its ambitious delivery schedule.
Work in the high-security laboratory of the Institute of Virology and Immunology (© IVI)
Vaccine specialist
“Our vaccine should be ready in October, and our chances of success are good,” claimed Martin F. Bachmann, Head of Immunology at the University of Bern, at a web conference with the United Nations Press Association. The financing of the project would be well underway and the approval should also be granted more quickly than usual. Bachmann plans to start initial tests on volunteers in August.
The Swiss, also Professor of Immunology at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford, and a visiting professor at the International Immunology Institute of Anhui University, Hefei (China), is the founder and co-founder of several biotech companies active in the field of therapeutic vaccines in humans (Saiba GmbH, HealVAX GmbH, and DeepVax GmbH) and animals (Hypopet AG, Evax AG). Saiba would be a partner in vaccine production.
Scalable production
The Swiss said that his accelerated timing is partly explained by possible production facilitation. Only 200 liters of bacterial bio-ferment are required to produce 10 to 20 million vaccine doses. “The vaccine is unique because of its enormous scalability. It can produce billions of doses in a very short time,” stated Bachmann.
In an interview, the 52-year-old immunologist explained the strategy of his 15-member team. First, the DNA of the virus was ordered. “We only needed one sequence of it, because, since the Sars and Mers virus, whose pathogens are closely related to the Coronavirus, we know what we need to make an antibody,” Bachmann said.
Unique approach
The vaccine being developed by the Swiss team has a unique approach, the Swiss news portal Swissinfo reported: It uses so-called virus-like particles which – unlike the use of the virus itself – are not infectious and provide a good immune response. More precisely, the team is working with a “cucumber mosaic virus” that attacks cucumbers.
Via a biochemical method, the researchers attach a so-called receptor-binding domain to the surface of these particles. “This is the site where the virus binds to human cells. When this design is injected into a living organism, currently still mice, an immune reaction is produced,” he explained. An institute in the Latvian capital Riga supports the Swiss effort. They test ten to twenty different variants every day simultaneously to achieve a fast result.
Cloning success
In the meantime, scientists in the fields of virology and veterinary bacteriology at the University of Bern have cloned the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). The synthetic clones are being used by research groups worldwide to test corona samples, find antiviral drugs, and develop vaccines as quickly as possible. The method developed in Bern can also be used in the future to combat other highly infectious viruses.
In the high-security laboratory of the Institute of Virology and Immunology of the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office in Mittelhäusern and at the Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Bern, the researchers successfully reconstructed the coronavirus from synthetic DNA.
DNA copies containing parts of the coronavirus genome were introduced into yeast cells and assembled into a complete copy. The researchers then used this to produce infectious coronaviruses. “We replicated the virus within the space of a week,” said Professor Volker Thiel from the Institute of Virology and Immunology.
Text: Martin Fritz (partly with material of the University of Bern) for SCCIJ
