In view of the current pandemic crisis, the shortage of vaccine production capacity has become a serious problem worldwide. ContiVir, a spin-off project at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems Magdeburg, has now produced a virus-like particle (VLP) as a COVID-19 vaccine candidate using a fully scalable system. This VLP resembles the morphology and structure of SARS-CoV-2 particles, but does not contain infectious genetic material, as it has been purified using the innovative Steric Exclusion Chromatography (SXC) technology of ContiVir. "This makes the particles absolutely safe and suitable for use in any biolab", explains Dr. Pavel Marichal-Gallardo, who designed the purification technologies and procedures together with Dr. Felipe Tapia from the Bioprocess Engineering Research Group (Head: Prof. Dr. Udo Reichl). About half of the vaccine candidates against COVID-19 currently listed by the World Health Organization could be produced and purified in this way quickly and in large quantities.
Further information is available under www.contivir.com>http://www.contivir.com/