Recently, I was fortunate enough to attend and present at GSK’s PhD and Postdoc workshop in Siena, Italy. The workshop spanned two days and I had a brilliant time there – Siena itself is beautiful, I ate fantastic food, and I learnt a huge amount about all stages of vaccine production.
Unfortunately, due to confidentiality, I can’t go into great detail about others’ current research, however I have provided a short overview of the five main areas the workshop focused on below.
- Vaccine Discovery – examining varied immune responses from different antigens
- This research is wet lab-based, and includes testing protein and lipooligosaccharide (LOS) antigens attached to different delivery vehicles such as GMMA – genetically modified bacteria
- A variety of immune cell responses were investigated, including neutrophils, antibodies, and tissue-resident memory T-cells
- Technical development – testing different vaccine production, transport, and delivery mechanisms
- GSK has many vaccine filling lines around the world and much work is being done to ensure that these operate smoothly and production scales effectively from the lab to commercial scale
- Liquid and freeze-dried vaccines can be useful in different scenarios, and both these applications are being optimised for speed of production and stability
- In vitro models – ensuring in vitro models provide useful and accurate information
- We often find many studies on mice, but mice are not human(!) e.g. glycosylation of antibodies varies between the two, and so we still need data on in vitro human tissue
- Presentations focused on particular disease areas, including respiratory and sexually transmitted diseases
- Platforms and Technologies – optimising antigen presentation and delivery vehicles
- Nano-particles can provide regular, stable scaffolds to display antigens or deliver them (including mRNA) to specific areas of the body
- This research showcased a mix of computational and experimental work – designing complexes in silico and then testing them in the lab
- Machine Learning and Data Science – designing better vaccines, faster
- Reverse vaccinology is being used to search an entire pathogen’s genome to find the best antigen targets that will provide stronger immune responses and reduce the number of clinical trials required until a suitable vaccine is found
- I also discussed my recent pre-print on paratope prediction in this session!
A completely unrelated footnote – while exploring the Uffizi gallery following the workshop, I learnt about the Medici family which largely ruled Florence between the 15th and 17th century. Clearly though, some rulers were favoured more than others…
- 1492 – 1494 Piero the Unfortunate
- 1469 – 1492 Lorenzo the Magnificent
- 1464 – 1469 Piero the Gouty
Ciao
Lewis the Lanky
