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Project

PBMC service laboratory.

In the past years the Centre for Evaluation of Vaccination (CEV) has received more and more demands of sponsors/consortia of vaccine clinical trials to collect peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) during the clinical trial conduct. This is a consequence of the scientific communities' increasing need to evaluate not only the humoral immune response (e.g. antibodies) to vaccine exposure, but also the immune responses controlled by immune effector cells, such as specific T cells of a CD4+ helper phenotype which mediate the generation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes or the activation of innate immune effector cells. As the CEV does not have a PBMC service laboratory for isolating PBMCs, the CEV team started to collaborate in 2019 with Dr Nathalie Cools' laboratory (Laboratory for Experimental Hematology, University of Antwerp) for PBMC isolation. In the lab of Dr. Cools, 12 blood samples can be processed per day for PBMC isolation. Often there is more than 12 blood samples needed. As a consequence, our sponsors have to either reduce the subset/amount of PBMCs that are being collected during the trial conduct or they look for options outside the University of Antwerp for this service (e.g. the PBMC laboratory of the Center for vaccinology (CEVAC), University of Ghent, is able to process 30 blood samples per day for PBMC isolation). To meet the rising need of PBMC collection during vaccine clinical trials and to stay (and even become more) attractive to vaccine clinical trial sponsors/consortia, our goal is to establish a PBMC service laboratory at the CEV (CDE S2). Our initial goal is to set up a PBMC service laboratory which allows to perform 18 PBMC collections per day, while still collaborating with Dr. Cools for the same amount of samples as currently. In total, 30 PBMC collections per day could therefore be offered with this combined service. This would make the University of Antwerp more competitive with other Universities that provide this service as well (e.g. Ghent University) to perform vaccine trials for existing and future sponsors (external sources), in particular those that need a more detailed immunological analysis of responses to vaccines. In addition, it would give the CEV more independence from the laboratory of Dr. Cools, who also offers this service to other Parties (and can therefore not always assure availability). In a long term, there is also the option to increase the sample amount per day even further. Setting up the CEV PBMC service laboratory would be the first crucial step in this direction. Processing will include PBMC isolation by density gradient centrifugation, counting of viable cells and freezing of the samples. Consequently, to start up the PBMC service laboratory at the CEV, funding is needed for specific equipment (e.g. centrifuge, cell counter, cryogenic ultra-low freezer) and limited, temporary financial support for personnel. The aim is to establish a fully operational PBMC service laboratory by the end of this project. In further collaboration with Dr. Nathalie Cools' lab, a total of 30 samples a day could be processed in both labs (12 samples per lab). Once the PBMC service lab is established, the operational costs will be paid by the vaccine clinical trial sponsors/consortia.
Date:1 Sep 2020 →  31 Aug 2021
Keywords:VACCINOLOGY
Disciplines:Vaccines