Scientists in US and Australia team up for ASF vaccine

Scientists from Australia and the USA are teaming up to develop a safe and effective vaccine against African Swine Fever (ASF). That news was shared at the website of Australia’s national science agency (CSIRO). The agency is working with US biotech firm MBF Therapeutics to evaluate their novel DNA vaccine candidate for ASF. While Australia has never had an outbreak of ASF, it has recently spread through Asia, with also outbreaks in Indonesia and East Timor (since 2019) and Papua New Guinea (2020). The scientists will evaluate the vaccine in the secure laboratories at CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness (ACDP), a high biocontainment facility in Geelong (Victoria state) designed to safely enable research into the world’s most dangerous diseases. Dr David Williams, an ASF expert at ACDP, said, “While first-generation vaccines have recently been approved for use in some parts of Asia, these are weakened live virus vaccines, which have potential to revert back to a ...