Vaccine Formulation Institute (VFI)

http://www.vformulation.org

maria.lawrenz@vformulation.org

Adjuvants are frequently used by the vaccine research and development community, primarily for their ability to modulate immune responses and improve dose-sparing. However, suitable adjuvants and the associated expertise required to effectively use them are not readily available to the majority of vaccine research groups. Even those groups with access to suitable adjuvants frequently fail in the development of their adjuvanted vaccines because of a lack of knowledge on how to correctly formulate and characterize both their adjuvants and the resulting vaccine formulations. These challenges led to the creation of the Vaccine Formulation Institute (VFI) in 2012, which today provides a variety of adjuvant-related laboratory and training services to the vaccine community. The VFI aims to provide access to a wide variety of adjuvant technologies and to improve access to advanced formulation expertise and quality control assays on a not-for-profit basis to all interested groups.

Role in the TRANSVAC project

VFI will lead the coordination of TRANSVAC2 training activities. This will include the development of procedures for training advertisement, application and selection processes, and in close collaboration with the consortium partners, the development of a comprehensive training program in vaccinology, consisting of short modules that can be combined to customized courses. Furthermore VFI will organize the training module on Adjuvants and Vaccine Formulation.

Main staff involved in TRANSVAC

Dr. Maria Lawrenz;

The Facility

The Vaccine Formulation Institute has access to laboratories and training facilities, including at University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

TNA or Training provided

Training Module - Adjuvants and vaccine formulation: This four-day module for up to ten participants will be organized by VFI in collaboration with UNIL and SSI (Technology Platform). The course will combine lectures with laboratory demonstrations, discussion rounds and group work on thematic case studies. The focus of this training module will be the different vaccine adjuvant systems and best practices in formulation of adjuvanted vaccines.

Description

 

 

 

Description