UVA Health scientists have developed a promising new way to create vaccines that could be faster, cheaper and easier to distribute than current options.

The University of Virginia School of Medicine’s Dr. Steven L. Zeichner leads the team that is refining a vaccine-development platform to rapidly produce vaccines during outbreaks such as COVID-19.

The approach could be faster to develop than mRNA vaccines and avoid some of their biggest challenges, including the need for constant cold storage.

“We hope that vaccines made using this new platform will be very easy and inexpensive to manufacture in existing factories around the world using very abundant and easy-to-obtain starting materials, and be stable at ordinary refrigerator temperatures, so they are easy to distribute,” said Zeichner, part of UVA’s departments of Pediatrics and of Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology.

“We hope that the vaccines made using this platform will help prevent disease not only in people, but also in animals, so that they can help farmers and consumers, and prevent diseases from spreading from animals to humans,” he said.

From design to delivery

The process starts by identifying a key piece of a virus or bacterium that the immune system can learn to recognize and attack. Scientists then design a vaccine around that target and fine-tune it to trigger a strong, effective immune response.

Computer modeling tools are used to confirm the vaccine design will work as intended. Once verified, the instructions for making the vaccine are sent to a company that produces synthetic DNA.

That DNA is placed into specially selected bacteria, which act as tiny vaccine factories. The bacteria are grown, then safely inactivated to create the final vaccine.

This method is easier than the processes used to make mRNA and many other modern vaccines, building on long-established techniques that have been used for more than a century to produce vaccines for both people and animals.

From design to delivery

The process starts by identifying a key piece of a virus or bacterium that the immune system can learn to recognize and attack. Scientists then design a vaccine around that target and fine-tune it to trigger a strong, effective immune response.

Computer modeling tools are used to confirm the vaccine design will work as intended. Once verified, the instructions for making the vaccine are sent to a company that produces synthetic DNA.

That DNA is placed into specially selected bacteria, which act as tiny vaccine factories. The bacteria are grown, then safely inactivated to create the final vaccine.

This method is easier than the processes used to make mRNA and many other modern vaccines, building on long-established techniques that have been used for more than a century to produce vaccines for both people and animals.

“We know that in a pandemic, it is very important for everyone to be able to get vaccines. First, because we want to protect everyone. But also, second, because we know that new disease variants that can be resistant to existing vaccines arise in unprotected populations where disease runs wild,” Zeichner said. “Protecting everyone in the world is not just an altruistic goal, but also a self-interested one.”

Because these vaccines could be produced at extremely low cost – potentially for less than $1 per dose – they would be affordable even for countries with limited resources. The vaccines would also be shelf-stable and last for long periods without refrigeration, making it easier to deliver to people in remote and developing regions during a pandemic or infectious disease outbreak.

“Vaccines need to be safe and effective, but it is also important that we can make vaccines against new threats very quickly, so that we can respond to new pandemics,” Zeichner said. “Governments and others have stated that a new vaccine for a pandemic threat should be able to be made in 100 days. But we think that with our platform, we can make a new vaccine for testing in three weeks.”

Promising results

Zeichner has already built the new platform and is testing it. Early results show the system can successfully produce vaccines that generate a strong immune response in the body.

Zeichner and his team were able to significantly boost the effectiveness of a trial vaccine, increasing the immune response in some cases by as much as eightfold compared with the original version.

UVA’s Licensing & Ventures Group has filed patent applications related to the vaccine platform.