Project description
New vaccine platform to keep pigs safe
African swine fever (ASF) threatens pigs and wild boar populations across Europe. The disease, caused by the ASF virus (ASFV), poses significant challenges due to its diverse variants and the limited efficacy of traditional vaccines. Current measures struggle to contain ASF outbreaks, leading to economic losses and significant animal welfare concerns. In this context, the EU-funded VAX4ASF project aims to provide a definitive, effective and safe solution against the highly contagious, unpredictable and complex ASFV. The project seeks to innovate based on previous vaccination approaches and strategies with potential for success. Moreover, it introduces novel virus epidemiology models and control strategies, fostering better transmission comprehension.
Objective
VAX4ASF aims to develop a state-of-the-art platform to produce highly effective and safe vaccines against ASFV targeted for both domestic pigs and wild boars. These vaccine candidates will be designed based on an innovative and robust vaccine platform that will guarantee immune protection against the different circulating ASFV variants in Europe, while avoiding the safety concerns arisen with the use of traditional live attenuated vaccine platforms. Vaccine candidates will effectively induce innate immune response with the adequate adaptive immunity. Moreover, the immunity induced will allow discrimination between vaccinated and infected animals, which will be monitored by complementary DIVA tests developed under the scope of the project. Given the complexity of ASFV genome and the still incomplete knowledge of the mechanisms involved in immune response to ASFV, VAX4ASF aims to further understand the molecular mechanisms of the virus and how it interacts with the host. The developed platform can be used to introduce new mutations based in this new generated knowledge which will allow to improve the efficacy and cross-protection of the vaccine prototypes.
VAX4ASF will provide new virus epidemiology models and control strategies using different mathematical models, leading to a better understanding of the ASFV transmission at the wild-domestic interface. In this way, innovative policies and strategies for ASFV control and management will be generated to ensure an outstanding impact through the continuous involvement of key stakeholders as project partners (farmers, wild board managers, veterinaries, hunters, policy makers...) leading to a profound effect in animal health and worldwide economy. The project relies on a solid collaboration trajectory between leading developers of innovative Animal Health vaccines and the highest experts in ASF field at international level, including partners from Europe, USA, and Kenya for the achievement of this challenge.
Fields of science
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologyvirology
- medical and health scienceshealth sciencespublic healthepidemiology
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineimmunology
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicinepharmacology and pharmacypharmaceutical drugsvaccines
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematicsmathematical model
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
17170 Amer Girona
Spain