Safe & Sweet
Vaxxilon from Adlershof is introducing new sugar-based vaccines
“Vaccination is one of the most effective medical measures out there,” says Tom Monroe, CEO of Vaxxilon GmbH, whose research department is based in Adlershof. Indeed, the activation of endogenous defences by introducing weakened or killed germs to the body has saved millions of lives. Our goal is to add some chapters to that story of success, says Monroe. There are about 30 vaccines out there. Considering the many germs that are also out there, we need many more.
Developing and producing vaccines is still a lot of work and quite expensive. It involves working with dead bacteria, which are cultivated in cell cultures. The focus is on certain parts of the bacterial shell that consists mainly of carbohydrates, i.e. sugar. Following vaccination, the human immune system is forced to deal with them and creates antibodies that eliminate pathogens in case of a real infection.
These sugars are very complex. Their structure is interconnected and folded, says Claney Pereira, who is head of the Vaxxilon research group. It has nine members, most of them are chemists and biologists. Some have already done research on the synthesis of sugars at the Max Planck Institute for Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam-Golm. Professor Peter Seeberger, director of the Potsdam-based MPI, is a pioneer on this field. He co-founded the start-up Vaxxilon together with Actelion, a Swiss biotechnology company, in 2015. Seeberger developed a machine that quickly and precisely synthesises sugar chains. This has reduced the dependency on cultivating pathogens and isolating carbohydrates from the cellular envelope.
The Vaxxilon researchers started by identifying as many candidates as possible. Their focus was on finding out which tiny part of the bacterial shell is responsible for immunity and reconstructing it. In order to work, the synthetic vaccines are tacked to a carrier protein.
In consultation with the Paul-Ehrlich-Institute, the Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicine, a study of a vaccine developed by Vaxxilon is underway against a particularly dangerous form of pneumonia. The pathogen, the bacteria “streptococcus pneumoniae”, takes on 30 different forms, which makes vaccination only partly effective. The Vaxxilon team is now aiming at the streptococcus bacteria of the serotype 3. This will be the acid test for the entire procedure. Researchers must make sure that the vaccine can be produced in sufficient amounts in liquid form and stays stable and effective over months.
If this is successful, there are more vaccines on the agenda, for example, the “haemophilus influenzae” type B, which produces bacterial infections in small children. The situation is critical in developing countries, where many children are not vaccinated.
“This would be proof that our methods are effective,” says Monroe. Moreover, Vaxxilon experts are looking at how the voluminous carrier protein can be replaced with a much smaller, synthetic structure. Not only would this simplify vaccine production, it would also make the expensive cooling redundant. The new carrier molecule would activate the immune system in a way that would result in less vaccinations.
Finally, Vaxxilon researchers have their eyes on the extremely dangerous “klebsiella pneumoniae”, which has claimed many lives. There is not yet a vaccine.
By Paul Janositz for Adlershof Journal