Lab scaling up vaccine production capacity

Saskatoon researchers are collaborating with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) to scale up production of a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

The University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-international Vaccine Centre (Vido-intervac) was the first laboratory in Canada to isolate SARS-COV-2 and expects to know within two weeks whether its first candidate vaccine offers animal test subjects any protection against the virus.

The key for all of this is having the regulators comfortable that the technologies we’re using are going to be safe ... in the long run.

The NRC is now exploring using a proprietary cell line to speed up production of that vaccine antigen for future preclinical and clinical studies, which VIDO -Intervac associate business director Dr. Paul Hodgson says could help expedite its development, production and approval.

“The key for all of this is having the regulators comfortable that the technologies we’re using are going to be safe for humans in the long run,” Hodgson said.

Protein-based vaccines like the one Vido-intervac is developing aim to stimulate an immune response by introducing an antigen, which mimics the behaviour of the virus. The body then produces antibodies that can seek and destroy the real virus if it ever enters, making that person immune.

But even if a vaccine is approved, producing enough of it to inoculate the world’s population is a challenge. Vido-intervac received $12 million in federal funding in late March to expand Canada’s vaccine production capacity, but is still looking for other methods to crank out antigens faster.

Enter HEK293, a mammalian cell line developed by the NRC. The cell line is a population of living cells that the NRC uses to scale up production of proteins and other vaccine components. In this case, Hodgson said the multiplying cells could help produce the needed proteins, which can then be harvested for vaccine production.

“We’re very happy to be able to assist Vido-intervac in advancing development of their candidate vaccine against COVID-19 by applying our proven expertise in scale-up vaccine production,” NRC president Iain Stewart said in a release.

If Vido-intervac’s animal trials are successful, it will bring the laboratory another step along the long regulatory pathway towards an approved, working vaccine. Researchers would still have to conduct clinical trials in humans.