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http://www.innovationcanada.ca/10/en/articles/article1.html
To fight emerging global viruses, Canadian researchers are banding together to create potent new vaccines.
By: Laura Eggertson
Deep in the bowels of the Southern Research Institute in Birmingham , Alabama , researchers have begun to test a Canadian-made vaccine that has the potential to save the lives of millions of people around the world.
Just a year since an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) killed 44 people in Canada and close to 800 people worldwide, a unique collaboration of Canadian researchers has developed the new vaccine being tested in Birmingham. If the tests prove successful, the vaccine could protect against future outbreaks of SARS, or at the very least, mitigate its potential to devastate the global population.
The quick development of the SARS vaccine is a particularly astonishing accomplishment that's the result of team work and the proper infrastructure, says Lorne Babiuk, Director of the University of Saskatchewan's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO). “Within less than a year, we have a vaccine being tested,” he says. “We couldn't have done this if we didn't have the infrastructure in place. You can sit and dream all you want, but if you don't have the intellectual capital, the physical capital, and the infrastructure, you can't do anything.”
VIDO is one of several Canadian institutions mobilized in a rapid-response initiative to develop the vaccine (under normal conditions vaccines can take as long as 10 years to develop). The SARS Accelerated Vaccine Initiative (SAVI), run by the Michael Smith Foundation in British Columbia , which includes VIDO as a member, has been working at an unprecedented pace using talent harnessed from across the country. Eventually, Babiuk's goal is to have rapid-response vaccine teams in place to respond to all such emergencies.
The VIDO facility, which opened a new wing in Saskatoon in October 2003, is home to 135 researchers, graduate students, post-graduate fellows, and technicians. It's unique because it focuses on developing vaccines for both humans and animals—a vital convergence in an era when most of the infectious diseases emerging to challenge human health are believed to be jumping from one species to another.
The SARS vaccine is being tested at the Southern Research Institute in Alabama because it has a Level III containment facility, meaning it has the necessary precautions in place to make sure that highly infectious organisms do not escape and infect the general public. VIDO is currently a Level II facility. However, Babiuk has just received another CFI grant to help him finance an expansion at the Saskatoon site. The expansion could allow VIDO's researchers to do their own Level III testing in the future.
The SARS vaccine is just one of the many vaccines that VIDO researchers are developing. They're also working on vaccines for Hepatitis C, and vaccines that would combat the pathogens associated with food safety, such as salmonella, E. coli 0157:H7 and campylobacter. All of these pathogens, which live in animals, can adversely affect the humans consuming those animals.
VIDO is developing innovative new techniques to deliver vaccines to humans and animals.