Texas Children’s Hospital scientist speaks at our recent user group meeting about low-cost COVID‑19 vaccine

At the recent xMAP^® Connect user group meeting, we were honored to host Jeroen Pollet, assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, who also serves as a director on the Vaccine Development Team at Texas Children’s Hospital. Pollet presented his insights regarding the application of xMAP Technology towards a multiplex cytokine release assay that measures immune response to vaccine candidates for tropical and other diseases.

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Typically, Pollet and his team focus on surveillance, diagnostics, and vaccine development for neglected tropical diseases. “What’s truly unique about us is our science,” he said. The Vaccine Development Center is part of a special program that combines basic research with product development, as it spans preclinical and clinical testing—even seeing it through the regulatory review process. “It’s an integrated product development strategy,” Pollet added.

Shifting gears for COVID‑19

Upon the emergence of COVID-19, Pollet’s team turned its attention to this new public health threat and developed Corbevax^®, which is an effective, low-cost vaccine that could supply low-income countries where other COVID-19 vaccines are cost-prohibitive. In addition to having received emergency use authorization and being commercially available, Corbevax has been licensed for production in India, where 300 million doses are being manufactured. There, it has already been used to vaccinate more than 10 million children aged 12 to 14. Moreover, 100 million vaccine doses have been approved and designated for Botswana, where manufacturers will begin ramping up local production.

Multiplexing technology offers ease of use, standardization, and the ability to query multiple analytes

This exciting development was made possible through the dedicated and tireless work of Pollet and his colleagues, who relied on Luminex’s xMAP Technology to make it happen. They used Luminex’s bead-based multiplexing platform in a pipeline with orthogonal technologies to test for an immune response following immunization. They chose the multiplex cytokine release assay for its ease of use, standardization, and its ability to query multiple analytes, Pollet informed. In preclinical studies involving mice, the assay allowed them to quantify the cytokines secreted after two doses of the vaccine. Subsequent studies were also performed in primate models. “It’s really important that we get data as fast as possible,” Pollet said. Because xMAP allows testing for multiple analytes at once, time to results is accelerated by eliminating the need for tedious serial testing.

xMAP Technology supports vaccine development

Pollet’s team works with both recombinant protein- and mRNA-based vaccines. In separate studies involving Chagas disease, Pollet relayed that a heterologous approach using both protein and mRNA looked very promising towards boosting immune response based on cytokine assay results. “We believe that heterologous vaccination is really the way forward,” he said.