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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
An international consortium coordinated by the Fraunhofer-Institute for Biomedical Engineering (IBMT) has received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop one of the most modern global HIV cryobanks, as part of a new international effort to accelerate the development of an HIV vaccine. The consortium is also receiving co-funding from the Fraunhofer Society and the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Saarland.
In June 2004 the G8-countries at the world economic summit in Sea Island (Georgia, USA) appealed for a global enterprise to develop vaccines against Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), the AIDS pathogen. One strategic aim of this Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise was the creation of coordinated global development centres for HIV vaccines. In support of the Enterprise, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding a large network of HIV vaccine discovery and laboratory centers, including the Fraunhofer IBMT consortium, known as the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (The Collaboration).
Worldwide, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private foundation to finance programs for combating infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. Projects are chosen which have practical applications for global medical use and are especially relevant for developing countries.
This global initiative is an important stepping-stone for the development of a HIV vaccine. Within this program, the international consortium coordinated by Fraunhofer IBMT includes distinguished institutions in Europe and the USA: the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) in London, the San Raffaele Scientific Institute (DIBIT) in Milano, the University of Lund, the University of Saarland, the University of Washington and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The consortium has a total budget of 9 Mio US$ for an initial three year project which includes a 7.5 million US$ grant from the Gates Foundation, and contains co-funding contributions from the German side such as the Fraunhofer Society with 1.16 million US$ and the Ministry of Economic Affairs of Saarland with 600,000 US$.
The project is based on several years preparation and research work by the WHO UNAIDS coordinated HIV-Network and by the developments of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in the area of cryo-technologies.
The HI virus still poses unsolved problems. Despite decades of research a vaccine does not yet exist. The viruses are adaptable and versatile with many variations worldwide and they reproduce within the cells of the immune system of infected people. Therefore virus collections are indispensable instruments in the development of a vaccine.
Large and precious virus collections are currently decentralized and distribution technology is inadequate for future world needs. The approach of the international Consortium calls for a modern, central HIV cryobank to be established quickly. In this bank the viruses and cells of the immune system and other relevant reagents can be perfectly preserved at liquid nitrogen temperatures and retrieved at any time.
The Fraunhofer technology platform stores biological samples in small closed well substrates allowing the removal of single wells at low temperatures. The advantage is that the rest of the precious sample stays cold and safely stored. These procedures were developed in micro system and nano-biotechnology projects funded by the BMBF. Another development is that suitable electronic memory chips are closely connected with the sample. They may be read and written even at -180°C, a temperature found naturally on the planet Neptune. This development may also be useful in the space industry. Information about each sample is also stored in a central databank. A wrongly stored sample can be detected automatically by communication between the central databank and the cold memory chips in the 2 m high cryo-containers and the failure corrected. These technologies not only set standards for the HIV-storage. It is also a core element of banking for stem cells and their use in regenerative medicine. The Fraunhofer researchers are temporarily leading worldwide in this field of future biotechnology and medicine.
Fraunhofer IBMTs cryo-research and demonstration bank with its industrial scale and automation capability has been supported by the Ministry for Economic Affairs of Saarland and operated at Sulzbach (Saar) for two years where it has impressively proved its applicability. Coordinated by Fraunhofer IBMT, its director Prof. Dr. G. R. Fuhr and the virologist and immunologist PD Dr. H. von Briesen in close cooperation with the 7 international partners, especially the Saarland University (Prof. Dr. A. Meyerhans), the installation of the virus bank and the acquisition and conservation of samples will start soon.
The project will establish a unique virus bank and also store various additional reagents necessary for vaccine research. These will undergo extensive virological and immunological characterization and be used for future development of vaccines and new therapies. These samples and the resulting important biological data will serve as a tool for scientists worldwide.
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Günter R. Fuhr
Director
Fraunhofer IBMT
Telephone +49 (0) 6894/980-100
Telefax + 49 (0) 6894/980-110
Email: guenter.fuhr@ibmt.fraunhofer.de
Eurocryo - European Cryobank in Sulzbach (Germany)
copyright Fraunhofer IBMT, Bernd Müller
None
Merkmale dieser Pressemitteilung:
Biologie, Ernährung / Gesundheit / Pflege, Gesellschaft, Informationstechnik, Medizin, Wirtschaft
überregional
Forschungs- / Wissenstransfer, Forschungsprojekte
Englisch
Eurocryo - European Cryobank in Sulzbach (Germany)
copyright Fraunhofer IBMT, Bernd Müller
None
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