Safer viruses for vaccine research and diagnosis
A 3D reconstruction of a chimeric viral particle. Proteins on the virus surface have been coloured using a rainbow gradient to represent the many possible viruses that could be presented using this system. This image, and all of the project's visualizations, were developed by UQ's Dr Daniel Watterson. Credit: Dr Daniel Watterson Usage Restrictions:To be only used with this story. Must be credited.
Researchers from UQ and QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute have exploited the benign characteristics of the Binjari virus – inert to humans – to produce 'dangerous looking' mosquito-borne viruses such as Zika and dengue, but which cannot grow in humans or animals.
School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences' Dr Jody Hobson-Peters said the team, led by Professor Roy Hall, began to explore this possibility after discovering new viruses in the lab.
“We were originally hoping to gain insights into how mosquito-borne viral diseases evolve – viruses like Zika, yellow fever and dengue,” Dr Hobson-Peters said.
“We were also hoping to discover new viruses that might be useful for biotechnology or as biological control agents.
“The Binjari virus stood out, and while it grows to very high levels in mosquito cells in the lab, it's completely harmless and cannot infect humans or other vertebrate species.
“And it is incredibly tolerant for genetic manipulation, allowing us to swap important genes from pathogenic viruses like Zika, West Nile and dengue into the Binjari genome.
“This produces hybrid, or chimeric, viruses that physically appeared identical to the disease-causing viruses under the electron microscope, but were still unable to grow in human or animal cells.”
The researchers have effectively developed a new biotechnology platform requiring low biocontainment, to help safely develop vaccines and diagnostics against these mosquito-borne diseases.
Professor Andreas Suhrbier, from QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, said the team hoped to push this technology further down the development pathway toward human applications.
“The main advantage of this system is that it is safe,” Professor Suhrbier said.
“These hybrids cannot infect humans, meaning that manufacture of vaccines and diagnostic reagents don't require the strict and expensive biosecurity infrastructure ordinarily needed to grow these pathogenic viruses.
“The research is a testament to collaborative science – this all fell into place, with amazing collaboration within the Australian Infectious Diseases Research Centre.
“It's a technology that will truly revolutionise the manufacture of vaccines – supercharging high-volume vaccine development.”
###
The research has been published in Science Translational Medicine (DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aax7888).
Media Contact
More Information:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aax7888All latest news from the category: Health and Medicine
This subject area encompasses research and studies in the field of human medicine.
Among the wide-ranging list of topics covered here are anesthesiology, anatomy, surgery, human genetics, hygiene and environmental medicine, internal medicine, neurology, pharmacology, physiology, urology and dental medicine.
Newest articles
Single-Celled Heroes: Foraminifera’s Power to Combat Ocean Phosphate Pollution
So-called foraminifera are found in all the world’s oceans. Now an international study led by the University of Hamburg has shown that the microorganisms, most of which bear shells, absorb…
Humans vs Machines—Who’s Better at Recognizing Speech?
Are humans or machines better at recognizing speech? A new study shows that in noisy conditions, current automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems achieve remarkable accuracy and sometimes even surpass human…
Not Lost in Translation: AI Increases Sign Language Recognition Accuracy
Additional data can help differentiate subtle gestures, hand positions, facial expressions The Complexity of Sign Languages Sign languages have been developed by nations around the world to fit the local…