The Facility
The Viral Vector Core Facility produces recombinant virus-vectored vaccines for pre-clinical validation experiments and GMP starting material. The facility routinely produces human and primate Adenovirus (Ad) and MVA vectors and its capability will soon expand to include other viral vector backbones, such as adeno-associated virus (AAV). Virus-vectored vaccines are produced at high yields with appropriate QC, and are suitable for antigen screening in animal models. Services currently offered by the infrastructure: The facility currently produces MVA and human/primate Ad vectors for any external user who applies for the service on a fixed cost per virus basis. Services include the construction of new recombinant viral vectors, and bulking up existing vectors. QC includes virus titration, confirmation of identity, and sterility. The Transcriptomics Core Facility supports a systems biology approach in vaccine development focusing on the identification of transcriptomic correlates of vaccine immunogenicity and efficacy for a range of novel and licensed vaccines using PBMC or whole-blood and BAL fluid samples. Services include advice on sample selection and experimental design, design of protocols and templates, RNA extraction, quality assessment and amplification, and library construction for RNA sequencing. Bioinformatics services include data QC, outlier detection and general data management, and data analysis from platforms including Illumina or Affymetrix microarrays, RNA-Seq, SNP arrays, Exome-sequencing, ChIP-chips and CHIP-seq.
