Working to freeze-dry vaccines

Umass Lowell hopes to make it easier for people to be protected

lowell » Scientists at Umass Lowell are researching a process that would freeze-dry messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines so they can be transported and stored at room temperature.

“Our goal is to develop a freeze-drying process that can be used for mrnabased COVID-19 vaccines to make them more stable and extend their shelf life, as well as make them easier to transport, store and use,” said Seongkyu Yoon, a chemical engineering professor who is leading the project, along with Emily Gong of Physical Sciences Inc. in Andover and researchers at Merck and the University of Connecticut.

Currently, the MRNA vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-biontech must be refrigerated at below-freezing temperatures until they are ready to be used, which has caused supply chain issues and made it much more difficult to deliver the vaccines to people around the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends storing the Pfizer vaccine between negative 112 and negative 76 degrees Fahrenheit, and the Moderna vaccine between negative 58 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Johnson and Johnson vaccine requires conventional refrigeration between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit.

The freeze-drying process, called lyophilization, is being studied at Umass Lowell’s Lyophilization Research Bay, which opened in 2019 in the Mark and Elisia Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center. It is the first facility of its kind on the East Coast.

The process works by freezing a substance, such as the vaccines, then reducing the air pressure and adding low heat to allow the frozen water in the material to change directly from ice to vapor without melting, removing the water. It allows the product to be stored as a powder at room temperature and then reconstituted when it is ready to be used.

“So far, none of the COVID-19 vaccines has been able to be stored at room temperature, which makes our approach unique and very attractive,” Yoon said.

Yoon’s team hopes to use the process to enable a more rapid response to

Courtesy OF umass lowell umass lowell Chemical engineering professor seongkyu Yoon is developing a process to freeze-dry mrna-based COVID-19 vaccines for better transport and storage.