Newsletter October 2016

The European Parliament holds an event on “Vaccine Research and Development in Europe” highlighting the ADITEC success story

The Science and Technology Options Assessment (STOA) of the European Parliament, organizes an event “Working Breakfast on Vaccine Research and Development in Europe”.  This is a great opportunity to discuss about vaccines research & development activities in Europe, future developments and the role of the ADITEC project in this field. Politicians, Representatives from the European Commission and from other organizations, and leading experts in the field of vaccines R&D will participate to the event. The event will take place on November 8, 2016 between 8 am and 9 am.

The participation to the Parliament event is only possible by registration at http://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/cms/ , with a limited number of spaces available.

Event at the Italian Embassy in Brussels dedicated to ADITEC

A special high level event will be organized at the Italian Embassy in Brussels on the 8^th of  November. The event, will be dedicated to the High Impact Project ADITEC on the occasion of the Fifth Annual Meeting. Ambassador Vincenzo Grassi, warmly welcomes the project members, politicians and leading experts in the field of vaccines to his residency (on invitation only).

ADITEC Annual Meeting 2016

The next ADITEC Annual Meeting will be held in Brussels in November 7 – 9, 2016.
This three day event will be attended by over one hundred participants from the 42 ADITEC partner institutions which includes some of the most competitive European research groups from universities, research institutions and biotech companies together with top US groups on systems biology and adjuvants. The meeting will focus on the year’s project accomplishments and it is a great opportunity to fully see the global effort ADITEC is making. 

New ADITEC training on adjuvants and vaccine formulation

WHO (World Health Organization) together with University of Lausanne organizes the sixth course on adjuvants and vaccine formulation. This course is part of the ADITEC project.
Dates: 28 November – 2 December 2016
Deadline for applications: 20 October 2016
Location: Vaccine Formulation Laboratory at University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Topics:
This five-day training module is an on-site laboratory course to highlight practical aspects of adjuvants and vaccine formulations. In small groups, participants work on the following adjuvant systems :
– Aluminium salts : Preparation and characterization of aluminium salt formulations / Adsorption capacity / Antigen quantification after adsorption.
– Oil-in-water emulsions : Preparation of OiW emulsions by microfluidization at laboratory scale / characterization of OiW emulsion
– Water-in-oil emulsions : Preparation and characterization of WiO emulsion / Influence of production process on physicochemical properties / WiO emulsion breakage.
– Liposomes : Preparation and characterization of cationic and neutral liposomes / Influence of production process conditions on physicochemical properties.
– Nanoparticles : Preparation and characterization of PLGA nanoparticles / Preformulation study with model antigen.

Eligibility criteria: The course is specifically designed for Scientists and Professionals involved in research and development of vaccines who are working with – or planning to work with – adjuvants. Applicants should have a BSc or MSc, or have demonstrable vaccine-related research experience.
Only candidates working in the EU or associated member states are eligible to apply and priority will be given to members of the ADITEC project.
The course will be open for a maximum of 6 participants.

Registration fees and costs: Participants’ course registration fees and hotel accommodation at Hôtel L’Union will be covered by the ADITEC project (reservations must be made through the course organizers). All other costs are the responsibility of the participant or their employer.

Application procedure: Applicants must use the application form, which can be downloaded from the ADITEC website (www.aditecproject.eu). Applications must be filled in English and sent to  to Laura Pacciarini [email protected] using subject line “Adjuvant Formulation Course Application”. The deadline for submission of applications is 20^th of October 2016 at 5:00PM GMT.
Evaluation and selection of candidates will be performed by the ADITEC Training Steering Committee. Candidates will be informed about the outcome of their application latest by 4 November 2016.
For more information on the course content contact Dr. Maria Lawrenz

Rino Rappuoli joins the Royal Society of London

Rino Rappuoli, Chief Scientist and Head External R&D, GSK Vaccines, has been elected to join the Royal Society, the Independent scientific academy of the UK and the Commonwealth, dedicated to promoting excellence in science.

“Each person has a passion for finding something new; it’s a basic human curiosity. I am lucky to have found something that I love to do” said Rino Rappuoli

Major achievements include development of CRM197 used in H.influenzae, N.meningitidis, and pneumococcus vaccines; an acellular pertussis vaccine containing a genetically detoxified pertussis toxin; the first conjugate vaccines against meningococcus; MF59 adjuvant for influenza; the meningococcus B genome-derived vaccine.

Amongst other positions, he has served as visiting scientist at Rockefeller University and Harvard Medical School, he is elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization. Awards include the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1991), Italian President Gold Medal (2005), Albert Sabin Gold Medal (2009). In 2013 he was nominated the third most influential person worldwide in the field of vaccines (Terrapin). In 2015, he was awarded Fellowship of Imperial College Faculty of Medicine London and the Maurice Hilleman Award.

Rino Rappuoli has also introduced several novel scientific concepts: genetic detoxification, 1987; cellular microbiology, 1996; reverse vaccinology, 2000; pangenome, 2005.  
Read more . https://royalsociety.org/people/rino-rappuoli-12894/

Alberto Mantovani has been nominated President of  International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS)

Alberto Mantovani, has been nominated a President of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS), an umbrella organization for many of the regional and national societies of immunology throughout the world.
Prof Alberto Mantovani is an immuno-oncologist with MD from the University of Milan, and specialisation in Oncology from University of Pavia. In the late 70s he demonstrated the pro-tumour function of tumour-associated macrophages (TAM) linking inflammation and cancer and has been at the forefront of the inflammation-cancer research since. He demonstrated the role of chemokines in TAM recruitment, as well as in pathophysiology, including dendritic cell and polarized T cell migration. His current research focuses on exploring therapeutic potential of targeting TAMs and on understanding the role of fluid patter recognition molecule pentraxin in innate resistance to infections.
For his research activity he has received several national and international awards. For several years now, bibliometric analyses have indicated that he is the most quoted Italian scientist. The broad impact of the contribution of Alberto Mantovani is testified by citations.

Decision on the 5th SME/PHO Commissioned Research Support call

ADITEC launched the 5th SME /PHO Commissioned Research Support call in April 2016.  ADITEC has received 5 proposals, members of the External Advisory Board and the Steering Committee have closely reviewed the applications. The SC has decided that the following proposals will be funded:
1. RNASiL Submitted by BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals budget 95.921,43€
2. TB MicroNeedle-Patch submitted by MyLife Technologies BV budget 62.757,00€
3. CIFLU-Cross Clades submitted by Cilian AG budget 95.000,00€
4. Boostavant submitted by LiteVax BV budget 98.000,00€
ADITEC thanks SMEs that have been applied to the call.

Partner profile:

The Center for Infectious Disease Research Your text caption goes here. You can change the position of the caption and set styles in the block’s settings tab.

CIDR was founded in 1976 with the mission to make transformative scientific advancements that lead to the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases.  The Center began its work looking at neglected tropical parasitic diseases such as leishmaniosis and African sleeping sickness, but has expanded their focus to include HIV, TB, and malaria. In 2012, in a bold plan for scientific expansion, the Center began implementation of a revolutionary systems biology approach to infectious disease research. Application of this systems-focused, holistic, collaborative, and predictive approach to biomedical research offers the potential to radically shorten the time and cost necessary to reach important discoveries. More recently their work is also concentrated  on emerging diseases such as Zika.

Today, the Center is an internationally recognized institute for research and training excellence with connections from Seattle to more than 100 partners and collaborators around the world. Center staff has grown from five to nearly 300, made possible by a move into a state of the art research facility in 2004. The 15 current labs are led by a diverse group of researchers from many disciplines, utilizing deep collaboration to drive discoveries forward.
CIDR’s roles in the ADITEC project:
Dr. Daniel Zak, in collaboration with Dr. Alan Aderem, leads CIDR’s contributions to ADITEC as part of Work Package 9, which is focused on systems biology analyses of vaccine clinical trials.   So far, CIDR’s work has been concentrated in three areas:

1. 1. Development of computational methods for identification of predictive signatures from transcriptomic datasets. As immune profiling technologies become more comprehensive and sensitive, there is an increasing need for analytical approaches that can fully take advantage of their potential – including methods that can identify the most salient signals amongst widespread biological noise and variability.  As part of ADITEC, CIDR scientists have developed a gene-pair ensemble framework that has been successfully applied to identify and validate prospective transcriptional signatures of risk for tuberculosis disease.  
   2. Identification of transcriptional signatures of immunogenicity for adjuvanted and non-adjuvanted influenza vaccines in children. In collaboration with the Siegrist, Pollard, and Pulendran labs, CIDR scientist have analyzed innate immune responses to adjuvanted and non-adjuvanted influenza vaccines in children.  A common immune signature was identified that correlated with the immunogenicity of both vaccines.  
   3. Identification of transcriptional signatures that discriminate between two broadly used Hepatitis B vaccines, Engerix B and Fendrix. In collaboration with the Lewis and Pulendran Labs, CIDR scientists have performed comparative analysis of transcriptional responses induced by two hepatitis B vaccines in adults and integration of these profiles with antibody response magnitudes.

CIDR’s contribution so far:

• Development of computational methods for identification of predictive signatures from transcriptomic datasets.
• Identification of transcriptional signatures of immunogenicity for adjuvanted and non-adjuvanted influenza vaccines in children.
• Identification of transcriptional signatures that discriminate between two broadly used Hepatitis B vaccines, Engerix B and Fendrix.

ADITEC’s revenues for the CIDR:
The ADITEC project offers a unique opportunity for collaborations with leading experts in the field of vaccinology. WP9 combines computational biology with human immune profiling to generate biomarkers and hypotheses about vaccine mechanisms.   As multiple trials and analyses are completed, we will identify both adjuvant-specific and general pathways that control vaccine immunogenicity.

CIDR’s expectations of the ADITEC project: 

The ADITEC project will strengthen interactions between research from basic research and from clinical development. For CIDR, ADITEC offers an opportunity to collaborate on critical trials with world experts from all areas of vaccinology.

CIDR’s contribution in advancing immunization technologies in the coming years:

As immunization technologies become more advanced, there is an increasing need to understand the precise mechanisms by which they differentially program the immune system.   This will allow the development of adjuvants that can precisely induce immune responses with the desired phenotype, magnitude, and durability – which will be essential to overcome challenging pathogens like HIV, Plasmodium spp., and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.  Systems biology provides a mathematical framework to integrate comprehensive immune response profiles with clinical outcomes to generate biomarkers and hypotheses and yield insights that can accelerate vaccine development.

Scientists involved in the ADITEC project:
Dr. Daniel Zak, Assistant Professor
Dr. Ethan Thompson, Staff Scientist – Bioinformatics, Zak Lab
Dr. Ying Du, Staff Scientist – Bioinformatics, Zak Lab
Dr. Fergal Duffy, Postdoctoral Scientist, Zak Lab
Dr. Alan Aderem, Director and Professor

Recent publications

Great progress has been made in the first four years of the project as shown by the 174  publications that have appeared in 74 different peer reviewed journals.
This is the list with recent publications with the acknowledgement to the ADITEC project:

1.    Wang Y, Rahmen D, Mistry M, Lehner T The effect of cellular stress on T and B cell memory pathways   in immunised and unimmunised BALb/c mice  Journal of Biomedical Chemistry (2016) August 8 doi: 10.1074/jb.M116.746057
2.    Wordsworth J, Cohen S, Moguche A, Plumlee C,  Agger EM, Urdahl K, Andersen P Subunit Vaccine H56/CAF01 induces a population of circulating CD4 T cells that traffic into the Mycobacterium tuberculosis infected lung Mucosal Immunology (2016) July 15 doi: 10.1038/mi.2016.70
3.    Barocchi Michèle A., Black Steve, Rappuoli Rino Multicriteria decision analysis and core values for enhancing vaccine-related decision-making. Science Translational Medicine (2016) June 29 doiI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aaf0756
4.    Kaufmann S., Fortune S., Pepponi I., Ruhwald M., Schrager L., Ottenhoff. T., TB Biomarkers, TB correlates and human challenge models: New tools for improving assessment of new TB vaccines. Tuberculosis.(2016) June 16, doi:doi.org/10.1016/j.tube.2016.05.010 doi.org/10.1016/j.tube.2010
5.    Joosten S., van  Joosten Simone A , van Meijgaarden Krista E, del Nonno Franca, Baiocchini Andrea, Petrone Linda, Vanini Valentina, Smits Hermelijn H, Palmieri Fabrizio, Goletti Delia, Ottenhoff Tom HM. Patients with tuberculosis have a dysfunctional circulating B-cell compartment, which normalizes following successful treatment. Plos Pathogens , (2016) June 15, doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat. 1005687
6.    Kupz Andreas, Zedler Ulrike, Staber Manuela, Kaufmann Stefan H.E. A mouse model of latent Tuberculosis infection to study intervention strategies to prevent reactiviaton. Plos one. (2016) June 10, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0155348
7.    Zimmerman N., Saiga H, Moura.Alves.P, Koehler A, Bandermann S, Dorhoi A, Kaufmann SH. Syndecans promote mycobacterial internalization by lung epithelial cells. Cell Microbiology (2016) June 9, doi:10.1111/cmi.12627
8.    Gengenbacher Martin, Nieuwenhuizen Natalie, Vogelzang Alexis, Liu Haipeng, Kaiser Peggy, Schuerer Stefanie, Lazar Doris, Wagner Ina, Mollenkopf Hans-Joachim, Kaufmann Stefan H. E. Deletion of nuoG from the Vaccine Candidate Mycobacterium bovis BCG _ureC::hly Improves Protection against Tuberculosis. American Society for Microbiology (2016) May 24 doi: 10.1128/mBio.00679-1624 May 2016 mBio vol. 7 no. 3e00679-16
9.    Kupz A, Zedler U, Staber M, Perdomo C, Brosch R, Kaufmann S. ESAT-6-dependant cytosolic pattern recongnition drives noncognate tuberculosis control in vitro. The Journal of Clinical Investigation. (2016) April 25; doi: 10.1172/JC184978
10.    Mohr E, Siegrist CL. Vaccine in early life – standing up to the challenges. Current Opinion in Immunology (2016) April 19;   dx.doi.org 10./1016/j.coi.2016.04.004