- These funds, granted by the European Commission in the framework of the European Vaccine Initiative (EVI), will be allocated to the line of research into developing a COVID-19 vaccine led by José Martínez-Costas
The Centre for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials at USC (CiQUS) continues to reinforce its position on the international map by raising funds for its research activity. That is the case of the funds that it has just been granted by the European Commission (European Vaccine Initiative, EVI) and that will enable the team led by José Martínez-Costas at CiQUS to proceed to clinical trials if the results of animal testing are successful, within the framework of the research project for developing a COVID-19 vaccine which is being conducted in collaboration with the group led by Javier Ortego (CISA-INIA).
Supported by the European vaccine infrastructure
This funding constitutes a very important step forward because it will cover the whole research path, all the way up to the clinical trials. To this end, TRANSVAC2 - the European vaccine infrastructure - , funded by the European Commission within the framework of Horizon-2020, will provide Martínez-Costas’s team with access to services for developing high-quality vaccines in the field of animal models and regulatory support for the microspheres within cells that they have developed, the results of which will determine the likelihood of proceeding to clinical trials.
“Over the past few months, we have developed various versions of the microspheres. Now, we are going to characterise them by using sera from patients given by HULA (Lucus Augusti University Hospital)”, indicates this researcher. “We will agree with the service financed by TRANSVAC2 on the time limits for commencing animal testing, which we estimate will begin within one month or one and a half months”, explains Martínez-Costas.
TRANSVAC2 is a European vaccine research and development infrastructure which aims at accelerating the development of safe, effective and affordable vaccines. And it does so by facilitating access to the specialized skills and technical capabilities required for developing vaccines which are not available in a single organization, providing high-quality technical services in four different platforms: technology (for process development and GMP production), immune correlates and systems biology, animal models and support for clinical trials. TRANSVAC2 has received funds from Horizon 2020, the European Union research and innovation program, through Grant Agreement No. 730964.
