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Welcome to our website

    VACCINES

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thermostable viral vaccines

Developing a heat stable oral polio vaccine (OPV) had been for many years an unrealisable goal for
the World Health Organization. The three Sabin poliovirus strains incorporated in OPV will lose most
of their potency within a few days at ambient temperatures. A solution containing 10 billion infective
virus particles per cubic centimetre 10¹⁰ particles/cm³ would see this activity fall to around 10⁶
infectious particles/cm³ in one week at 37^oC. This represents a loss of 4 factors of 10 or 4 logs.
The WHO defined a goal of less than 0.5 logs loss of activity after 1 week at 37^oC.

Karl Simpson, who had previously headed the European Molecular Biology Laboratory's deuteration
facility, recognised that the increased stability of deuterium bonds as opposed to hydrogen bonds
(of the order of 0.25 kilocalories/Mole) might offer hope of stabilising water bridges in the virus
particles, leading to an overall strengthening of the viral particle against ambient thermal denaturation
- as well as increased resistance to ambient enzyme activity.

By simply suspending viruses in a 90% solution of buffered heavy water the WHO goal for stability
was achieved! This simple solution to a long-term problem demonstrates that lateral or "out of the
box" thinking can allow major work to be executed without access to expensive facilities. A little
creativity, access to relevant literature and simple confirmatory tests in independent laboratories
were able to establish a significant advance in medical science.

This technology is patented and has been licensed to major players in the vaccine sector.
Other applications beg to  be developed.

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the "Pseudo-Live" rational attenuation concept

This revolutionary technology applies the principles of "rational attenuation" to the development of
a safe vaccine that stimulates the body's immune system to combat HIV infection. Bénézech -
Simpson call this the "Pseudo-Live" vaccine concept.

According to Dr Jay Levy, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of California,
San Francisco:
"We have to design a vaccine that will mimic the three dimensional structure of the
virus and will act like the pathogen, having some low level of replication, yet not
causing illness." (Genetic Engineering News, 1995)

We have adopted an approach which will achieve exactly that.
We summarise the major steps below:

1     key genes, including that coding for reverse transcriptase (RT) are cut out of the HIV virus genome.
2     the virus cannot infect or replicate without RT.
3     so it is useless as a vaccine - but:
4     RT genes are introduced not into the virus, but into cells in which the virus can replicate.
5     in these cells the handicapped viruses can multiply.
6     the  gene make RT protein.
7     RT allows the virus to replicate its nucleic acid - which is missing the  gene.
8     we wonít worry about other genes here.
9     the replicating viruses wrap up some of the RT protein.
10   if these gene deficient viruses enter a human - as a vaccine.
11   the presence of RT protein allows the virus to replicate until the protein is
       broken down by normal body chemistry. This usually takes place quite quickly.
12   so the viruses multiply a limited number of times and then come to a full stop.
13   unlucky for some - the HIV viruses in this case. The infection stops here.
14   the multiplication has been just enough to stimulate the immune system, without causing disease.
15   the person infected with pseudo-live virus is now protected from real HIV infection.

Details on this project can be obtained directly from Bénézech - Simpson.
We have established a management team and a business plan which is capable
of supporting this concept as a stand-alone company focusing on HIV and other
retroviruses. We can also adapt this technology to gene therapy. Given the high
containment facilities implied in the development of this vaccine we will need to
generate support of the order of €10 million to take the project through to animal
trials and demonstration of principle.

We are delighted to develop our ideas in partnership with those having
an established presence in the markets of relevance. Our contact details
are on our home page.

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