That’s not quite right. I can’t get to that book right now, but measles and mumps for MMR are also done in Chicken eggs, IIRC, as are Herpes and Poxviruses, while cell lines and other media can be used to grow other viruses—but the remainder of the facilities are still similar, and can be repurposed.
But I agree that we do need new platform technologies.
Hmm, well that book chapter claims measles and mumps vaccines are produced in chick embryo cell culture, which is different from propagation on chicken eggs. My quick Googling revealed that we don’t have a licensed herpes vaccine, and that while there might be one or two smallpox vaccines that are produced in chicken eggs, many are done in cell culture.
You might be right about the broader (and more important) point about ease of facilities repurposing, however—I don’t know enough to say, although the table in the book chapter makes me doubtful, given that pretty much all steps in the manufacturing process (production, isolation, purification, formulation) seem unique to each vaccine.
yellow fever vaccine is one that springs to mind that also uses eggs in production
The yellow fever vaccine is made by growing yellow fever virus in mouse embryo cells and in chick embryo cells. The final preparation of the vaccine is made in eggs. Growing yellow fever virus in mouse and chick cells over and over again weakened it. Therefore, when this “live, weakened” virus is injected, a protective immune response develops without causing illness. SOURCE
FWIW, eggs are actually specific to influenza vaccine manufacturing. Page 3 of this book chapter ( https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/B9780128021743000059?token=F492A74B3C4545B108379536769CF93D7F1DB89321DADE859256496F5D85CB6259372D34376809219BBBE2FFFDEF25FB ) has a really nice table showing the production process of a number of different vaccines—they are all very different from one another. This is why we need new vaccine platform technologies—i.e., tech that can be used to produce multiple different vaccines. mRNA vaccines would fall into this category and is a reason why Moderna’s mRNA vaccine candidate for COVID-19 would be so exciting if it works.
That’s not quite right. I can’t get to that book right now, but measles and mumps for MMR are also done in Chicken eggs, IIRC, as are Herpes and Poxviruses, while cell lines and other media can be used to grow other viruses—but the remainder of the facilities are still similar, and can be repurposed.
But I agree that we do need new platform technologies.
Hmm, well that book chapter claims measles and mumps vaccines are produced in chick embryo cell culture, which is different from propagation on chicken eggs. My quick Googling revealed that we don’t have a licensed herpes vaccine, and that while there might be one or two smallpox vaccines that are produced in chicken eggs, many are done in cell culture.
You might be right about the broader (and more important) point about ease of facilities repurposing, however—I don’t know enough to say, although the table in the book chapter makes me doubtful, given that pretty much all steps in the manufacturing process (production, isolation, purification, formulation) seem unique to each vaccine.
yellow fever vaccine is one that springs to mind that also uses eggs in production
Good to know, thanks!