UK scientists develop safer foot-and-mouth vaccine

British scientists have developed a new methodology to produce a vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease virus. Because the vaccine is all synthetic, made up of tiny protein shells designed to trigger optimum immune response, it doesn't rely on growing live infectious virus and is safer to produce. 
These empty shells have been engineered to be more stable; making the vaccine much easier to store and reducing the need for a cold chain. This is important research because it represents a big step forward in the global campaign to control foot-and-mouth disease virus in countries where the disease is endemic, and could significantly reduce the threat to countries currently free of the disease. Crucially, this new approach to making and stabilizing vaccine could also impact on how viruses from the same family are fought, including polio.
This collaborative research was led by Professor David Stuart, Life Science Director at Diamond Light Source and MRC Professor of Structural Biology at the Department of Medicine University of Oxford and Dr. Bryan Charleston, Head of Livestock Viral Diseases Program at The Pirbright Institute. 
Dr. Charleston, whose team at The Pirbright Institute has developed a detailed understanding of the immune response to foot-and-mouth disease virus in cattle and is leading the vaccination trials work, says, "The foot-and-mouth disease virus epidemic in the UK in 2001 was disastrous and cost the economy billions of pounds in control measures and compensation. As a result of the outbreak the Royal Society recommended new approaches should be developed to control the virus should it happen again. 
"This important work has been a direct result of the additional funding that was provided as a result of the 2001 outbreak to research this highly contagious disease. Using our detailed knowledge of the immune responses to foot-and-mouth disease virus in cattle we were able to define the characteristics that needed to be incorporated into the new vaccine platform to induce protection." 
Professor Stuart, explains, "What we have achieved here is close to the holy grail of foot-and-mouth vaccines. Unlike the traditional vaccines, there is no chance that the empty shell vaccine could revert to an infectious form. This work will have a broad and enduring impact on vaccine development, and the technology should be transferable to other viruses from the same family, such as poliovirus and hand foot and mouth disease, a human virus which is currently endemic in South-East Asia," 
Key results were published in the journal PLOS Pathogens on Wednesday 27 March 2013. The work is principally funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK (Defra) and the Wellcome Trust.
Clinical trials of the synthetic shell based vaccine on cattle carried out by Dr. Charleston and his team have shown it is as effective as current vaccines. A commercial product is still several years away the team hopes that the technology can be transferred as quickly as possible to make it available to a global market.