New Targeting Vaccines for Sustainable Aquaculture

Fish diseases represent one of the major risks to the continued growth of the aquaculture industry. This project should develop a flexible and versatile fish vaccine platform (TarGet) where vaccines could easily be tailored to any viral disease and fish species. Vaccines carry whole or fragments of pathogens and are given as a mean to fight infectious diseases. The vaccine stimulates the body's immune system and places the host on alert in later encounters with the pathogen in question. Sometimes, protection fails because the host's immune system simply does not respond to the vaccine adequately. In TarGet we explore new approaches to ensure a strong and efficient immune response, a principle that could easily be adapted to a variety of pathogens and species. Durng thje project period we made vaccines that provided good protection against the pathogen, but the effect was caused by the viral antigen and not our targeted approach. TarGet was a collaborative project involving the Norwegian Veterinary Institute, a leading national fish health research center, the Norwegian vaccine company Vaccibody AS, the global fish vaccine company Pharmaq AS and Kjeller Innovation.

Vi utforsket et nytt DNA vaksineprinsipp som baserte seg på målstyring av patogene fragmenter til spesialiserte immun celler for å øke effekten av vaksinen. Beklageligvis for oss fant vi ikke at denne målstyringen hadde en effekt i vår modell, men vi fant en effekt av de patogene fragmentene som var inkludert i vaksinen. Prosjektet har utvidet forståelsen av DNA vaksiner for alle impliserte og prosjektets første leder ble headhuntet av industri for å videreføre utvikling av DNA vaksiner. Vi forfølger også patentering og kommersialisering av vaksine administrasjons prinsipper utviklet i prosjektperioden.

Aquaculture is the world's fastest growing food sector, worth a massive US$119 billion globally (FAO, 2012). Fish diseases have cost the aquaculture industry tens of billions of dollars in losses over the last 20 years and represent one of the major risks to the continued growth of the industry. This project will develop a fish vaccine platform (TarGet) which can be applied across a wide range of fish species. In TarGet vaccines, the antigen is linked to a targeting module that ensures an effective immune response for the specific disease in question. Based on phylogeny, targeting units are developed that can be utilised for entire families of fish. This modularity provides a flexible and versatile vaccine platform on which vaccines can easily be tailored to any pathogen. TarGet is a collaborative project involving the Norwegian Veterinary Institute (NVI), a leading national fish health research center, the Norwegian vaccine company Vaccibody AS which offers its knowledge of the development and commercialisation of targeting vaccine technologies, and the global fish vaccine company Pharmaq AS which contributes its know-how on fish vaccines and their markets. Kjeller Innovation will be responsible for the commercialisation strategy as part of a team involving NVI, Inven2, Vaccibody and Pharmaq.