Andrew Broadbent, a Research Fellow at The Pirbright Institute, recently attended the 10th Vaccine Congress held in Amsterdam from 4-7 September 2016. The Congress was organised by the Elsevier Journal, Vaccine, and covered a range of sessions including vaccines in the 21st Century, new technologies, vaccines for the developing world, and one health and emerging viruses. Here, Andrew highlights some of the areas that may be of interest to the Veterinary Vaccinology Network.
Greg Poland, Editor-in Chief, Vaccine
Dr Poland coined the term “vaccinomics”, referring to the development of personalised vaccines. While individualized vaccines are a long way off, we already are aware that the ‘one size fits all’ approach is not the best. Dr Poland’s group are currently trying to understand how vaccine-induced immune responses differ between different age groups, genders, ethnic groups, and between people with differing immune statuses, and in pregnancy etc. to try to optimise and tailor vaccines for different groups.
Rino Rippuoli, GalaxoSmithKline
Dr Rippuoli spoke of the explosion in new technologies and how they can be applied to vaccinology. He cited how reverse vaccinology was applied to meningitis B vaccines, where the organism was sequenced and surface antigens selected and screened for protective function. He also stressed how structural biology can influence vaccine design, for example the respiratory syncytial virus F protein in its pre-fusion conformation is a good immunogen, but in its post-fusion conformation is not. He described recent advances in vectored vaccines, and efforts to create a totally synthetic vector rather than relying on viral vectors. He also mentioned the need for research into novel adjuvants and that systems biology approaches will change the way vaccine trials are conducted in the future.
Albert Osterhaus, University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover
Professor Osterhaus spoke about influenza viruses and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). They have developed a modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA)-based influenza vaccine against H5N1 and shown it to be well tolerated and immunogenic in people. After boosting, homologous and heterologous antibody titres significantly increased. MERS vaccines are a good example of a One Health approach to disease control. They are currently developing an MVA- MERS vaccine for use in camels and people to protect against MERS, but also to protect animals against camel pox infection. Professor Osterhaus stressed the importance of research in the inter-pandemic period, including surveillance, vaccine platforms, animal models, and mathematical models. He emphasised the need for a multi-disciplinary approach between clinicians and vets and scientists, and promoted a new “One Health” journal from Elsevier.
Beth-Ann Griswold Coller, Merck
Dr Coller spoke about the V920 ebola vaccine, which is a live attenuated vaccine comprised of vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) in which the glycoprotein has been replaced with that of the ebola virus (EBOV). The outbreak started in December 2013, and the first Phase 1 trial was undertaken in October 2014 with subsequent phase 2 and 3 trials in 2015. A single dose of the vaccine is protective against ebola. A phase 2/3 ‘PREVIAL’ trial is underway with two vaccine candidates: one from NIAID/GSK, which is a chimpanzee adenovirus 3 (cAd3) vectored vaccine, and the V920 VSV-EBOV vaccine.
Yoshi Kawaoka, University of Wisconsin
Professor Kawaoka spoke of novel imaging technologies his group is using to visualise influenza infection in vivo and ex vivo. Using mice-adapted influenza viruses expressing fluorescent reporter molecules, he spoke about using two-photon intravital microscopy to visualise infection in the lungs of live anaesthetised mice. Host cells could be labelled with fluorescent markers to determine host-virus interactions. During H5N1 infection, blood flow in the lung was found to slow down and alveoli were found to be more closed. He also spoke about using correlative light electron microscopy (CLEM) to visualise the lungs of mice infected with influenza. CLEM combines the capability of confocal microscopy and electron microscopy to provide more information.
There were also several breakout sessions and posters that may be of interest. For the full programme, see: