Webinar on African horse sickness virus-like particle vaccines in plants
The first IVVN webinar of 2022 took place on Tuesday 25 January and the focus of the session was the development of African horse sickness virus-like particle vaccines in plants. Dr Ann Meyers, a Senior Research Officer in the Biopharming Research Unit at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, presented the webinar to 40 attendees.
Dr Meyers' presentation began with an introduction to African horse sickness, a highly infectious, non-contagious disease of equines caused by African horse sickness virus (AHSV). Midges transmit AHSV and African horse sickness is endemic across Africa and increasing in other areas due to global warming.
Following the introduction, Dr Meyers discussed disease control options, including a commercially available, live attenuated vaccine made by Onderstepoort Biological Products in South Africa. There has been interest in the development of recombinant vaccine strategies due to the disadvantages associated with live attenuated vaccines.
During the remainder of the talk, Dr Meyers discussed her work to develop virus-like particle (VLP) vaccine candidates in plants and presented the results of trials performed to assess the safety and immunogenicity of plant-produced AHSV VLPs in horses.
Many thanks to Dr Ann Meyers for a fantastic talk, Professor Brian Perry for chairing the session and to the attendees for joining us.
A recording of the webinar is available below. If you would like to be notified about future IVVN webinars, please sign up for free IVVN membership here.
