SMART award to Big DNA for vaccine development
25 June 2008
Edinburgh based firm Big DNA Ltd which is developing
new methods of delivering vaccines, has been awarded a SMART award
of £70,000. SMART Scotland gives grants to small and medium sized
enterprises to help support R&D projects representing a significant
technological advance for UK industry or a sector concerned.
The new award to Big DNA, which recently announced the appointment of ex-cabinet minister Lord Freeman as their chairman, will be used to develop their phage-based vaccine technology over the next 18 months. Dr John March, chief executive of Big DNA Ltd, said "We are delighted to have been awarded this grant which will enable us to develop a Quality Assurance Scheme for manufacturing our phage vaccines, which are simpler and cheaper than traditional methods. This could be of enormous benefit in treating, for example, future strains of pandemic flu viruses, which will need fast effective systems to create new vaccines. What we are working on here in Edinburgh has the potential to save millions of lives in the future."
Big DNA has developed the technology to make vaccines very quickly, in weeks rather than months, which can be administered orally, negating the need for needles.
"By using bacterial viruses ("phage") to deliver DNA
vaccinations," John continued, "BigDNA aims to speed up
the process of producing vaccines, reducing the costs of production,
and importantly allowing vaccinations in all species to be delivered
without the use of needles. Traditionally, vaccinations against viral
diseases were impossible to deliver without the use of a needle. With
our novel technology we have made serious progress in the fight against
infectious diseases."
ENDS
EDITORS NOTES:
Big DNA Ltd was set up in 2007 by Dr John March, as a spin out company from the Moredun Research Institute at Edinburgh University, to further develop and commercialise new vaccination technologies. Based at Roslin BioCentre, the company currently employs 7 people.
Big DNA technology
The DNA vaccine is placed inside a bacterial virus, known as a bacteriophage
(or phage), with special genetic instructions so that the vaccinated
host can make the vaccine itself by reading this DNA. Thus the host,
or patient, actually makes the vaccine, rather than it being manufactured
externally.
Dr John March, chief executive, Big DNA Ltd
Dr John March is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. He has
a BSc in Molecular Biology and a PhD in DNA Replication, and an MBA
from the University of Dundee. He has held many important research
positions including at the Dept of Molecular Biology at Edinburgh
University, the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh, and Harvard Medical School,
Boston USA. He was a research fellow at the Centre for Genome Research
University of Edinburgh. Amongst very many professional memberships,
he sits on the review panel of DEFRA, Exotic Disease Research Programme.
He is an enterprise fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh, and
an award winner of the Scottish Enterprise Proof of Concept Award.
He has published many papers on Bacteriophages and Biotechnology,
vaccines, gene therapy and antibacterials, and holds patents for Bacteriophage-mediated
immunisation.
SMART SCOTLAND - SMART Scotland helps small and
medium sized businesses improve their competitiveness by developing
new, highly innovative and commercially viable products or processes
to the benefit of the national economy. The financial awards made
by SMART SCOTLAND enable firms and their expert staff to commercialise
their technological innovation and help Scotland become a more successful
country. www.smartscotland.gov.uk
E-mail: contact@bigdna.co.uk