The laboratory that seeks to prevent the next outbreak of diseases – 08/08/2023 – Science
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One of the UK’s most secretive scientific research centers —Porton Down— works to stop the next pandemic.
I went through the incredibly tight security of this remote facility to gain rare access to the scientists at Porton Down, near the English city of Salisbury. They are based in the new Center for Vaccine Evaluation and Development.
Based on the experiences and knowledge accumulated during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, the center wants to save lives and minimize the need for social isolation when a new pandemic arrives.
“Covid-19, of course, was not an isolated case,” says Professor Jenny Harries, executive director of the UK Health Safety Agency (UKHSA), which runs the research centre.
“We say that [a covid] was the biggest public health event in a century, but I don’t think any of us think it will be a century before the next one [pandemia] arrive.”
Porton Down is one of the few places in the world equipped to do research on some of the most dangerous viruses and bacteria you can imagine. Freezers there contain pathogens like Ebola.
In the buildings next to the research centre, institutions such as the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (part of the Ministry of Defence) operate, where it was confirmed that the substance novichok was used in the poisoning of a British couple found unconscious in Salisbury.
The Vaccine Development and Evaluation Center was hastily built as part of the Covid response.
But as the intense demands of the pandemic have eased, the focus has shifted. The vaccine research center is focusing on three types of threats:
- known infections that are becoming more difficult to treat, such as antibiotic-resistant superbugs;
- threats that could cause new problems, such as avian flu and new variants of Covid-19;
- and “disease X”: something unforeseen, like Covid, that can take the world by surprise.
Porton Down scientists are working on the first vaccine against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, which is carried by ticks and kills about a third of those infected.
The disease is found in Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and Asia — and could spread further with climate change.
At the other end of the process, the effectiveness of vaccines is evaluated. It was scientists here who discovered that the omicron variant could bypass some of the protection offered by Covid vaccines.
And they are still tracking new Covid variants, growing them in the lab, exposing them to antibodies taken from blood samples, and seeing if new variants are still able to infect.
Meanwhile, the center is on the front lines of monitoring the world’s largest avian flu outbreak.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus has devastated poultry populations, and routine testing of farm workers has found the first asymptomatic cases in people in the UK.
The difference is that, before the pandemic, teams were only able to test 100 samples per week – now, the capacity is over 3,000.
faster vaccines
The lab is working on the “Mission 100 Days” project — an extremely ambitious goal to develop a vaccine against a new threat in 100 days.
Historically, it takes a decade to design and test new vaccines. The unique circumstances of the pandemic —and contemporary scientific knowledge— meant that the first Covid-19 vaccines were produced within a year.
Estimates suggest that Covid-19 vaccines saved more than 14 million lives in just the first 12 months they were used.
“Imagine if these vaccines were available a little earlier,” says Professor Isabel Oliver, UKHSA’s Chief Scientific Officer.
“They became available faster than ever before in history, [mas] we could have saved many more lives and we could have returned to normality much faster.”
The hope is that the lessons of the coronavirus pandemic will make us more prepared next time.
Harries says that in the past we were simply reacting to incidents, but in the future we need to be up front and “try to stop” any pandemic before it even starts.
The text was originally published here.
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