Faster development of flu vaccine

The world’s first synthetic influenza vaccine program started in October 2010 when SGI and Novartis (now Seqirus), along with scientists at the JCVI, began working together through a Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)-sponsored program to apply synthetic genomics tools and technologies to accelerate the production of the influenza vaccine seeds required for vaccine manufacturing. The ultimate goal of this collaboration is to develop a “bank” of synthetically constructed vaccine seeds ready to enter production as soon as WHO identifies the pandemic or seasonal influenza strains for which a vaccine is needed.