Development of a Drosophila S2 insect-cell based placental malaria vaccine production process

Background Malaria during pregnancy is the cause of 1500 neonatal deaths a day. Moreover, 40% of all low weight births are caused by pregnancy associated malaria. Researchers at Copenhagen University have identified the VAR2CSA protein as a potential protective recombinant placental malaria vaccine. ExpreSion Biotechnologies is responsible establishment of cell lines expressing VAR2CSA variants and for developing the protein production process based on VAR2CSA. The ExpreS System is a one-for-all protein expression system based on Drosophila S2 cells that is excellent in all phases of Drug Discovery, R&D and manufacturing due to high-level transient transfections, easy establishment of stable polyclonal pools that provides continuous high protein expression levels without selection pressure, and simple cloning procedure. It is a novel, nonviral, insect-cell based expression technology applied to the development of a critically needed vaccine. The VAR2CSA protein, which the vaccine is based on, is hard to express and comparison studies between insect, bacteria and yeast have shown that an insect cell system is the only one leading to a clinically useful immune response. Process optimization is also critically important, as the cost of manufacture must be as low as possible to allow the vaccine to be used in the countries where it is most needed.