Vaccinopolis
On Friday, March 25, 2022, Vaccinopolis opened its doors. In the unique vaccine research center at Campus Drie Eiken, vaccines against various pathogens will be tested, which can further accelerate the fight against new and existing diseases. “With Vaccinopolis, we put our country on the map,” says driving force Pierre Van Damme (UAntwerpen). “Together with partners, we want to build an innovation ecosystem in pandemic control.”
Developing vaccines is one of the greatest global challenges today.
“Corona has really brought us face to face with the facts,” explains vaccinologist Prof. Pierre Van Damme (UAntwerpen). “But the awareness has been there for a long time. The climate is changing, people live closer together, we travel more often, and we are getting older: all evolutions that contribute to a faster and broader spread of viruses.”
Together with its partners, the University of Antwerp is building an innovation ecosystem in pandemic control. Vaccinopolis is an important pillar in that ecosystem. In the center, candidate vaccines will be tested against numerous infectious diseases, such as RSV, dengue, or whooping cough. There will also be research on how known flu vaccines can be improved, for example.
Administering Pathogens
In the brand-new Vaccinopolis complex, the outpatient studies of the Center for the Evaluation of Vaccinations will be conducted and monitored. In such studies, participating volunteers come for regular check-ups. But what truly makes Vaccinopolis unique is the ability to conduct CHIM studies.
Van Damme: “CHIM stands for Controlled Human Infection Model and means that test subjects first receive a vaccine or a placebo and then are deliberately given a reduced dose of the pathogen. This allows researchers to quickly test whether and how a particular candidate vaccine works. On the European mainland, there is no comparable facility of this magnitude. For similar facilities, you have to go to the United States or Great Britain.”
Complete Quarantine
Vaccinopolis has thirty beds. In some studies, test subjects will stay in complete quarantine for several weeks. This is partly for safety reasons: the pathogens must obviously not be allowed to spread in society. On the other hand, volunteers can be optimally monitored up close.
“In this way, you can also take samples from the test subjects daily,” says Dr. Ilse De Coster, head of the clinical trial team. “Based on these characteristics, we can eventually try to predict how specific groups of people will respond to a particular vaccine. Each study is pre-approved by an independent ethics committee and by the regulatory authorities (FAGG). Only studies with pathogens for which a treatment already exists are conducted.”
Various Safety Levels
The building was completed in record time: the entire process was completed in fourteen months. “Typically, the realization of such a project takes four to five years,” says chief architect Roy Pype (Proof of the sum). “But the circumstances were exceptional: COVID-19 proves that viruses can strike quickly and unexpectedly.”
Proof of the sum, Exilab, Abstract Architecten, burO Groen and Establis were responsible for the integrated design. The construction was carried out by Group Jansen (Jansen Cleanrooms) and Cordeel. Imtech Belgium, together with Jansen Cleanrooms, will handle the maintenance for fifteen years. Work progressed quickly, but nothing was left to chance regarding biosafety. Strict decontamination procedures apply throughout the complex, and special filters filter all outgoing air.
UAntwerpen x ULB
The federal government invested 20 million euros in Vaccinopolis and in the Institute for Medical Immunology of the ULB. There is close collaboration with the Brussels university: they are highly regarded in human vaccine immunology and will now do this from a high-quality immunological laboratory.
Private partners also invested in the realization of Vaccinopolis. From the Flemish government’s recovery plan, 5.3 million euros were also made available for the development of an innovation ecosystem in pandemic control, as indicated in the 2030 roadmap of Voka-Chamber of Commerce Antwerp-Waasland.
Volunteers Wanted
Vaccinopolis did not come out of nowhere. In 2017, UAntwerpen already gained a lot of experience with the Poliopolis project. Thirty people then stayed for 28 days in a hermetically sealed container village to test a new polio vaccine during a kind of CHIM study. “The volunteers did this mainly for altruistic reasons,” says Ilse De Coster. “There was a student who wanted to finish his thesis, someone who converted his office remotely, and someone who wrote a book.”
Just like in Poliopolis, test subjects in Vaccinopolis will first be extensively screened for their physical and mental health before they qualify for participation. UAntwerpen is constantly looking for healthy volunteers for its vaccine studies. For each study you participate in, there is a fair compensation.