The Fraunhofer Center for Molecular Biotechnology (CMB) in Newark, DE, the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing Innovation (CMI) in Boston, the Boston University College of Engineering, and the biopharmaceutical company iBio, Inc., in Newark have developed a fully automated, scalable “factory” that uses natural (non-genetically modified) green plants to efficiently produce large quantities of vaccines and therapeutics in just weeks. The first-of-a-kind, plant-based vaccine factory takes advantage of plant viral vector technology developed by Fraunhofer CMB for iBio. The technology has the capability to produce specific proteins within the leaves of rapidly growing plant biomass. The factory’s robotically tended machines, designed by Fraunhofer CMI, plant seeds, nurture the growing plants, introduce a viral vector that directs the plant to produce a target protein, and harvest the biomass once the target has accumulated in the plant tissue. “Traditional methods of vaccine production can take many months. Our plant-based technology provides the means for rapid, large-scale production of vaccine material in a cost-effective manner,” says Vidadi Yusibov, PhD, executive director of CMB.
The factory has the capacity to grow tens of thousands of plants in one batch. The plants are grown in multi-plant trays that are used to handle and transport the plants to different processing stations. To automate the process, robots glide up and down a track, tending the plants — delivering trays from the lighted, irrigated growth modules to each processing station at the appropriate time. “In order to quickly produce large quantities of vaccine material or other protein-based medicines such as antibodies in compliance with [current Good Manufacturing Practices], it was necessary to develop a consistent, repeatable process. We have taken a biological process and turned it into an industrial process,” says Andre Sharon, PhD, professor of mechanical engineering at Boston University and director of CMI. “Even though the process of making vaccines from plants includes many aspects of traditional horticulture, we have developed a way to automate those functions to quickly, safely, and cost-effectively scale up from a few milligrams in a laboratory setting to the many kilograms that would be required in case of a pandemic.”
In a separate collaboration, Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC, and Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (LabCorp) of Burlington, NC, have formed a joint venture to commercialize new biomarkers in a similar factory-like approach. The entity is designed to speed the translation of newly discovered biomarkers into clinical tools that can measure individual therapeutic responses, predict disease progression, and evaluate any number of biologic or disease-causing processes. Dubbed the Biomarker Factory, the joint venture combines Duke’s expertise in biomarker discovery and validation with LabCorp’s experience in the development and commercialization of diagnostic and laboratory tools. “The Biomarker Factory is at the intersection of translational medicine and personalized medicine,” says Victor J. Dzau, MD, chancellor for health affairs at Duke University and CEO of Duke University Health System.
Biomarkers are being used to develop treatments for diseases such as Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and breast and lung cancer. Research by Duke scientists John McHutchison, MD, associate director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, and David B. Goldstein, PhD, professor of molecular genetics and microbiology and director of Duke’s Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, demonstrates how biomarkers can give critical information about the likelihood that a patient will benefit from treatment for hepatitis C. “A particularly exciting aspect of this partnership is that we will be developing deep knowledge about appropriate use of biomarkers in clinical practice and how to provide this information so that patients and doctors can make better decisions,” says Andrew Conrad, PhD, executive vice president and chief scientific officer of LabCorp.
The Biomarker Factory will benefit from hundreds of thousands of biological samples contributed by Duke as well as the infrastructure in place in the Duke-led, large-scale epidemiology study known as MURDOCK, which is currently recruiting 50,000 people into a registry. The Biomarker Factory also will capitalize on LabCorp’s biorepository being developed to discover and validate biomarkers in human disease. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Sources: EurekAlert! and MarketWatch