A new science technique inspired by natural processes millions of years old could revolutionise public health care by allowing vaccines to be stored for years without refrigeration, British scientists announced on Tuesday.
The technology, modeled on desert plants’ ability to survive drought, would spell radical improvements in medical access to children in developing countries who were previously too far from the so-called ”cold chain” now needed for vaccines.
Bruce Roser, chief scientist at Cambridge Biostability, told the BBC his company has created the technology, called ”stable liquid”, based on anhydrobiosis, the process that allows cells to be preserved in a dried-out state.
”If it works out as we hope, it will increase access to vaccines across the developing world and stop children dying,” Roser told the BBC.
Almost 30-million children around the world have no access to immunisation and nearly two million die yearly from illnesses that could be prevented by vaccines, according to the World Health Organisation.
Vaccine jabs often have to be thrown out in the developing world because of problems in the cold chain, which requires a stable electricity source to chill the medicine continually.
The British government has given Cambridge Biostability £950 000 to prepare its technique for clinical trials and Roser said the company is working with an Indian vaccine company to prepare for testing on humans.
He said the technique is modelled on the natural process seen in organisms such as the desert-dwelling resurrection plant, which dries up completely in drought conditions only to burst into life when rain arrives.
The resurrection plant has an ”unusual but simple sugar, which has the property of turning into a thick syrup when it dries out, rather than crystallising”, Roser said.
”We have taken this technology and made it work on the lab bench. We have put these vaccines in a solution of this syrup.
”We dry it and it turns into a syrup, which becomes more and more viscous as we remove more and more water until, imperceptibly, it solidifies as a glass,” Roser added. ”It is very similar to fossilised insects trapped in amber, which are preserved for millions of years.”
Cambridge Biostability’s first goal is to develop a fridge-free five-in-one vaccine to immunise against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, Hib (haemophilus influenza type B) and hepatitis B.
The scientists estimate it will take at least five years before their vaccine system is available commercially. — Sapa-AFP