New technology capable of making safer viruses for more vaccine research, diagnosis

Researchers at the University of Queensland have created a technology that will help create safer hybrid viruses at higher volumes for research and diagnostic efforts involving mosquito-borne diseases.

The key to the technology was the Binjari virus. Study researchers exploited the benign characteristics of the virus, which is inert to humans, to produce ‘dangerous looking’ mosquito-borne viruses such as Zika and dengue, but which cannot grow in humans or animals.

“We were originally hoping to gain insights into how mosquito-borne viral diseases evolve – viruses like Zika, yellow fever, and dengue,” said Dr. Jody Hobson-Peters, of the Queensland School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences. “We were also hoping to discover new viruses that might be useful for biotechnology or as biological control agents. The Binjari virus stood out, and while it grows to very high levels in mosquito cells in the lab, it’s completely harmless and cannot infect humans or other vertebrate species. And it is incredibly tolerant for genetic manipulation, allowing us to swap important genes from pathogenic viruses like Zika, West Nile, and dengue into the Binjari genome.”

What this amounts to is a new biotechnology platform that demands little in the way of biocontainment, allowing for safer development. The team — which also includes researchers from the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute — hopes to move the technology further toward human applications.

“The main advantage of this system is that it is safe,” Professor Andreas Suhrbier, of the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, said. “These hybrids cannot infect humans, meaning that manufacture of vaccines and diagnostic reagents don’t require the strict and expensive biosecurity infrastructure ordinarily needed to grow these pathogenic viruses.”

Suhrbier continued, stating that the technology will revolutionize vaccine manufacturing and create a faster process of high-volume vaccine development.