At room temperature

Scientists have figured out how to stabilize vaccines without a refrigerator

Svetlana Maslova, Hi-tech+

The COVID-19 vaccine is not the only one that needs a specialized temperature regime during storage and transportation. According to the World Health Organization, up to 50% of vaccines are thrown away every year because expensive ampoules could not be properly preserved. Now there is a technology to solve this global problem.

The standard temperature for storing and transporting vaccines ranges from two to eight degrees Celsius, and some, such as Pfizer's experimental COVID-19 vaccine, require a storage temperature of -70 to –80C°. Such conditions significantly complicate the availability of vaccines in places where not only equipment, but also medical personnel are lacking. Abnormal situations, such as power outages, add even more problems.

"The conditions for a vaccine to be injected into the human body are almost the opposite of those that make the virus stable," explains study co–author Caryn Heldt from Michigan Technological University. There is a difficult balance between maintaining the stability of the vaccine to obtain a good immune response and the presence of components in it for safe administration into the body.

To solve this dilemma, scientists used synthetic polypeptides. Having positive and negative charges, they stick together and envelop the viral capsids, which holds the components of the vaccine together, preventing decay, they explain. The main conclusions about the features of the technology are published on the university's website.

Such conditions can be called "gluing" of viral particles in the vaccine solution. As a result, the need for cooling the vaccine to maintain stability is reduced.

This process is called complex coacervation, and this approach is used everywhere with various products. For example, shampoos undergo co-preservation, and water acts as a tool to reveal all their properties, which eventually allow you to wash off dirt from the hair.

Complex coacervation acts on viruses without a shell, which do not have a lipid layer on the surface. These include rhinoviruses, polio and hepatitis A viruses, among others. Currently, scientists are working on adapting the technology for viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, whose membrane features still make it difficult to use.

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