CompuVac

2009 (July/August) - IAVI Report - Article on CompuVac, "Public database of Viral Vectors Released"

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CompuVac, a consortium of 140 scientists from 11 countries that was established in 2005, held a day-long symposium on June 29 at the Collège de France in Paris to commemorate the public release of an interactive database and bioinformatics tool that allows researchers to compare different viral vectors and virus-like particles (VlPs) to predict the best potential immunization strategy for the development of novel vaccines. This database was the culmination of an €8 million grant from the European Union under its Sixth Framework Programme.

CompuVac was created to help standardize the evaluation of viral vectors and aid the rational development of novel recombinant vaccines. “Many novel technologies for development of new vaccines exist but their design or improvement profoundly lacks a reliable evaluation system,” said David Klatzmann, CompuVac’s coordinator. This is because it is difficult to compare results from different studies because researchers often use different antigens or methods to evaluate vaccine vectors or VlPs.

Cedrik Britten, a T-cell immunologist from Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany, spoke at the symposium about efforts to encourage standardization in cancer research. He is pioneering an effort that would require any publication of immunology data to provide an explanation of methods. Although this “reporting standard,” as he called it, falls short of requiring use of standardized assays, it is a first step. Britten joked that a legal body would be required to realistically impose standardization because researchers are so unwilling to accept another’s protocol, but then cited an example involving a Grand Challenges in Global Health grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that successfully promoted standardization. This grant provided free reagents to researchers as a way to motivate them to use the same reagents.

Peter Piot, chairman of the board of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise, who also spoke at the symposium, said that the biggest resistance to standardization and sharing data comes from academic researchers, and not industry. He said that many of the “organizational challenges” in the AIDS vaccine field are “as big as the scientific ones.”

In an effort to standardize evaluation, CompuVac set out to study several vaccine vectors, including adenovirus, herpes simplex virus-1, measles virus, modified vaccinia Ankara, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, and DnA, as well as many VlPs, using standardized antigens—the GP33-41 epitope from lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus to evaluate T-cell responses and the envelope protein from vesicular stomatitis virus to evaluate B-cell responses. In all, CompuVac researchers fully assessed the immunogenicity of 51 different vectors with these socalled “gold-standard” antigens, based on their ability to induce T- and B-cell responses, as well as their ability to protect against an infectious challenge in mice. CompuVac researchers also assessed the gene-expression profiles induced by the different vectors and VlPs expressing the standard antigens. The results of these assessments are available in the Genetic Vaccine Decision Support system (GeVaDSs), the online database created by the consortium that stores this data and allows users to create associations and develop algorithms to compare new vaccine vectors or VlPs to those previously analyzed (available at www.compuvac.org). The premise of GeVaDSs is that researchers can then predict, based on the data sets for each of these single vectors, the best homologous or heterologous prime-boost combinations to evaluate further. The GeVaDSs system is what Klatzmann refers to as a “systems vaccinology approach.” —Kristen Jill Kresge

GENETIC VACCINE DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM  -  S u m m a r y

Genetic vaccines and especially recombinant viral

vectors and virus-like particles are considered the

most promising vehicles for delivery of antigens in

prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines against infectious

diseases and cancer. Several potential vaccine

design systems exist but their cost-effective development

cruelly lacks a standardized evaluation system.

Solving the problem Genetic Vaccine Decision Support

system (GeVaDSs, http://www.compuvac.org)

has been implemented as a part of CompuVac project

realized within 6th Framework Program of European

Commission. Using GeVaDSs we have successfully developed

and standardized methods for evaluation of

the efficacy and safety of individual vaccine vectors,

in a manner that allows comparison between different

vaccine designs, tested in different laboratories,

at different time points. With these methods, the efficacy

of a unique set of vaccines has been analyzed

and compared with an intelligent database. GeVaDSs

has allowed to make significant comparisons between

different types of vaccines and to initiate novel vaccine

design and vaccination regimens.

Besides monitoring of T- and B-cell immune responses,

GeVaDSs is also aimed at monitoring vaccine

“efficacy” and “safety” profiles by analyzing

relevant molecular signatures obtained from transcriptomes

studies. The “efficacy” and the “safety

profile” have been validated, based on analyzing

molecular signatures from whole liver and spleen

after injection of vaccine vectors.

The results of these experiments will drive

the development of HCV vaccines. The first HCV

vectors generated in single immunization regimen

were tested, and interesting results obtained suggest

the great potential for the association of our

two classes of vectors, viral and VLP derived.

2009 (June 29) - Closeout meeting for CompuVac in Paris  : "Rational Design and Standardized Evaluation of Novel Genetic Vaccines"

Source PDF : [HI00AH][GDrive]  

Present and presenting includes : Dr. Murray Briggs Gardner (born 1945)  /  Dr. Peter Karel Piot (born 1949)  /  Michael James Brennan, Ph.D. (born 1957)  /  

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8.30 Welcome address: Jean-Charles Pomerol (Président Université Pierre et Marie Curie) 

Marc Lipinski (Vice-Président du conseil régional Ile De France) 

8.45-9 CompuVac’s endeavor 

David Klatzmann (CompuVac’s coordinator) 

9-10.40 Immunity and infection 

- Michael J. Brennan, Ph.D, Senior Advisor, Global Affairs, Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation: Immune response to Tuberculosis, implication for vaccine development. 

- Brigitte Autran, Prof, MD, PhD, Director Biomedical Investigation Center, Hospital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris: Immune response to HIV, implication for vaccine development. 

- Christian Bréchot, MD, PhD, Vice President for medical and scientific affairs, Mérieux Alliance France: Immune response to HCV/HBV, implication for vaccine development. 

10.40-11 Coffee break 

11-11.30 Systems Immunology in vaccine development 

- Thomas Kepler, PhD, Head Laboratory of Computational Immunology, Human Vaccine Institute, Duke University, School of Medicine: Computational systems immunology for adjuvant development 

11.30-12.30 Challenges in vaccine development 

- Jean-François Delfraissy, MD, PhD, Prof, Director, National Agency for Research into AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS): The national perspective 

- Ruxandra Draghia-Akli, MD, PhD, Head of the Health Directorate, European Commission: The EU perspective. 

- Peter Piot, MD, PhD, Director Institute for Global Health, Imperial College London: The international perspective. 

12.30-13.30 Lunch (on site buffet) 

13.30-15 Vaccine development issues 

- Philippe Kourilsky, Prof, PhD, Chairman & Principal Investigator at the Singapore Immunology Network: Social issues related to vaccine development. 

- Anna-Lise Williamson, Prof, PhD, Principal Investigator HIV Vaccine Development Group and HPV Research Group: Development of HIV-1 Vaccines for Africa. 

- Murray Gardner Prof, MD, Center for Comparative Medicine, UC Davis USA: Animal Models for Vaccine Research. 

15-15.30 Coffee break 

15.30-17 Vaccine development: difficult case studies 

- Norman Letvin, Prof, MD, Director of the Non-Human Primate Research Program at the NIH Vaccine Research Center: The case of HIV. 

- Albert Osterhaus, Prof, DVM, PhD, Head of the Department of Virology, Erasmus MC Rotterdam: The case of Flu. 

- Charlotte Dalba, M.D., Ph.D., CEO Epixis: The case of HCV 

17-17.45 CompuVac’s achievements 

David Klatzmann (CompuVac’s Coordinator) 

17.45-18.30 GeVaDSs’ presentation & demonstration 

- Jacek Blazewicz, Prof, PhD Deputy Director of the Institute of Computing Science, PUT 

- Adrien Six, PhD, Assistant-professor in Immunology, UPMC 

18.30-18.45 Official opening of the online access to the CompuVac’s database and toolbox with representatives from EC/CNRS/UPMC/ and CompuVac’s partners 

18.45-19.45 Press conference 

18.45-20 Cocktail