African swine fever is a highly contagious viral disease of pigs, characterized by fever, cyanosis of the skin and extensive hemorrhages in the internal organs. The economic damage caused by African swine fever consists of direct losses for the radical eradication of the disease, restrictions on international trade, and is measured in tens of millions of dollars.
Lead Research Associate of the Regenerative Veterinary Science Lab Elena Zakirova speaks about the process, "At this stage, we have already produced a certain amount of a genetic preparation based on an adeno-associated viral vector that contains the genes for the most immunogenic African swine fever proteins. To date, we have conducted in vitro tests. The drug we received affects pig stem cells without causing a toxic effect. It is able to synthesize the necessary target proteins, the presence of which in the cell substrate has been confirmed by various biological methods."
During the next stage, scientists plan to conduct studies on laboratory animals in order to study the effect of the resulting drug design on the immune system of animals. ASF is a dangerous infection, a special license is required to work with it in the laboratory. Scientists don't work with a whole virus. Thanks to the qualifications of employees and the existing equipment, it is possible to synthesize individual genes of this virus, thus omitting licensing issues.
"Since development attempts of a vaccine based on live African swine fever virus have not been successful, we began to develop a vaccine based on gene preparations. Now scientists around the world are considering the possibility of creating a vaccine based on various viral vectors. We chose an adeno-associated vector because it has low immunogenicity and can be introduced into both dividing and non-dividing cells," adds Zakirova.
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