Developing and Implementing Automated Solutions for Vaccine Development

Abstract

Vaccines are generally accepted to be amongst the most efficacious, safe, and cost-effective medical interventions to prevent and treat infectious diseases. However, pathogens are constantly evolving and pose unique challenges to vaccine development. One major bottleneck in vaccine development is the need to accelerate development and deployment. Thus, we developed a platform to rapidly and accurately characterize the biophysical properties of potential vaccine candidates. Customized automation scripts were designed for sample preparation of two biophysical assays on a programmable robotic liquid handler. Screening a range of soluble protein constructs using these scripts reduced manual effort time, increased assay throughput, and had comparable accuracy to manual efforts. Overall, this approach demonstrates the potential for automation to transform early vaccine development pipelines by reducing turnaround time, optimizing resource use, and minimizing assay variability. Streamlining these processes will enable a rapid response to combat emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.