AgriLabs developed a new vaccine for FMD
The company says that the new seeds are the first to use a live adenovirus as a vector for select genes from FMD virus.
This new technology allows FMD vaccines to be made without the biosecurity hazard of having actual FMD virus in a U.S. manufacturing facility.
“We know that infecting animals with a weakened or attenuated version of an infectious agent generally produces a better immune response than inactivated antigens,” says Dr. Tim Miller, chief scientific officer of AgriLabs. “However, in the case of FMD, the risk of producing a harmful infection in vaccinated animals has prevented the industry from developing a live attenuated vaccine.”
The new technology allows for both the efficacy of a live attenuated vaccine and the safety of existing subunit or inactivated antigen-based vaccines, by integrating select genes from the FMD virus into an adenovirus vector, causing it to produce proteins related to an FMD infection.
“Because we’re using a replication-deficient adenovirus as the vector expressing the capsid genes of the FMD virus, we believe these vaccines will mimic a natural infection and therefore do a better job than an inactivated antigen of stimulating an immune response,” Miller says. “And, because we’re only using a limited piece of the genetic material from the FMD virus, there’s no risk of causing a harmful infection.”
Benchmark Biolabs, a subsidiary of AgriLabs, received funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate, contract HSHQDC-12-C-00127, to develop the new vaccines.
Although the U.S. has been free of FMD since 1929, a 2013 analysis by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service estimated that the cost of a major outbreak here could run into the tens of billions of dollars.
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