Psoralen-UV-A Inactivation Based High-throughput Pathogen Inactivation Device

Vaccines are the most effective tool to protect populations against pandemic spread, however, current vaccine development platforms are often too slow to protect service members from emerging diseases. NMRC has developed and demonstrated a viral inactivation process that uses a combination of psoralen (a photo activator) and UV light to take live virus and deactivate it, while leaving the viral genome and surface proteins intact. This can be readily adapted as a rapid whole cell vaccine manufacturing platform that can respond to emerging pathogens. In this project, TDA has transitioned the lab-scale, manual process developed by NMRC to a device capable of continuous, automated use, in both the lab and in a scalable production system for commercial vaccine manufacturing. The key innovation in TDA’s design uses a fluidic chip-based process which enables scale up from small (0.01 L) to large (50 L) volumes by simply adding more inexpensive fluidic chips. TDA has demonstrated complete viral inactivation of Zika virus using its Phase I device. In Phase II of this project, TDA will expand on its success by scaling the technology to a commercial grade prototype and demonstrate its efficacy by inactivating of 50 L of Dengue virus.