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The Silmarillion By J.R.R. Tolkien And Shahnameh By Firdausi: A Sadraic Interpretation Of Free Will And Determinism, Mohsen Hanif, Masoud Tadayoni

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Fate, doom, and free will have always proved to be controversial terms among philosophers. The chief problem is whether a deterministic power prescribes the destiny of creatures or they possess pure free will in shaping their destinies. Mulla Sadra, a 17th century Iranian philosopher, believes in a blending of determinism and free will which he develops in the terms of Qaza and Qadar respectively. He introduces a model of fate through which determinism and free will equally participate. Using the human soul as a model, Mulla Sadra points out that people meet their fate through several factors, one of which …

Poetics Of The Crystal-Image: Dreams In Mirror And Ashes Of Time Redux, Yuh-Yi Tan

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper delves into recurrent dreams and related recollections in Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror and Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time Redux. Gilles Deleuze has called Mirror a film of “turning crystal” because it reflects the two sides of the protagonist’s relationship with his mother and ex-wife by juxtaposing them in a mysterious labyrinth of past-present-future. The crystal imaging refracts four sides of two couples by showing the bonding of the parents along with the connection to his ex-wife and son. The same structure is apparent in Ashes of Time Redux where another set of two bilateral symmetries is initiated between …

The Turn Toward The Nonhuman In Susan Straight’S A Million Nightingales, Katarzyna E. Nowak-Mcneice

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This article proposes a reading of Susan Straight’s 2006 novel A Million Nightingales in the light of critical posthumanities, focusing specifically on references to nonhuman animals. It does so in order to place Straight’s writing within the context of the recent posthumanist debate concerning the distinction between human and nonhuman animals (cf. Donna Haraway, Cary Wolfe). I claim that while addressing the “fused” discrimination (after Carol J. Adams) of sexism, racism, and speciesism, Straight’s prose can be seen as a proposition of a reconfigured subjectivity, one based on “entanglement” and “intra-action” (Karen Barad). A Million Nightingales, which – together …

Cooling Down Transmedia Storytelling, Jan Baetens, Domingo Sánchez-Mesa

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In this article we propose a reading of “Dead End Street”, one of the most successful songs of one of the most popular British pop groups of the 60s, The Kinks. However, we will not discuss the song as such, but its remediation as a music video (a practice that did not have to wait for MTV to make its appearance in mass media culture). The analysis will briefly contextualize the group, the song and the clip, but its major objective is to use the Kinks example to open a new question in the larger debate on intermediality and transmediality …

Extending The Frontiers Of The Detective Novel In Adaora Ulasi’S The Man From Sagamu, Onyeka Odoh

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Part of the beauty of detective literature is the mental engagement and psychological contest it stages between the author and the readers, as well as its fascinating probe into the nature and dynamism of crime. However, of greater import are the formulaic structural elements that define the genre—a crime, the detection of the crime, an omniscient detective who intelligently investigates the crime, and a justified resolution of all. Though the structure of Adaora Ulasi’s The Man from Sagamu does not exactly fit into the above model, it is still a detective novel. Therefore, this essay aims to propose a new …

Precarity In The Times Of Partition: Personal Vs Communal Love In Khushwant Singh’S Train To Pakistan And Saadat Hasan Manto’S “Gurmukh Singh Ki Wasiyat”, Ayesha Perveen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

The paper studies how various shades of love respond to precarity in anarchic times by comparing the narrative representation of the aftermath of the Partition of the British colonized Subcontinent into independent countries of India and Pakistan in 1947 with particular focus on Sikh-Muslim relationships in Punjab as presented in Khushwant Singh’s novel Train to Pakistan and Saadat Hasan Manto’s short story “Gurmukh Singh ki Wasiyat.” Employing Judith Butler’s concept of precarity, the paper analyzes how both the writers sketch precarity in partition times ensuing in post-Partition communal violence and effacement of love. The selection of the texts is significant …

Reduced-Scale Experiments And Numerical Simulations Of Informal Settlement Dwelling Fires, Vigneshwaran Narayanan, Antonio Cicicone, Ayden D. Botha, Richard Shaun Walls

Progress in Scale Modeling, an International Journal

Informal settlement dwellings (ISDs) house approximately one billion people in the developing world and this number is expected to double by the year 2030. Contemporary research on ISD fires has focused on understanding the fire dynamics within individual dwellings (micro-scale) and fire spread in settlements consisting of multiple dwellings (macro-scale). This paper aims to do two primary things: investigate if scaling methods that were derived for compartments with thermally thick boundaries can be applied to ISDs (compartments with thermally thin boundaries), and if they can adequately represent the most important phenomena associated with full-scale ISD fires; and demonstrate Fire Dynamics …

Immunogenicity And Efficacy Of Non-Adjuvant Tissue Culture-Based Rabies Vaccine Produced In Ethiopia, Birhanu Hurisa, A Mengesha, G Kebede, A Godana, A Adhanom, S Kerga, D Nigussie, H Lemma, A Kebede, B Newayesiliasie, G Gebrewold, D Bankovskiy, A Metlin, K Urga

Vaccine Technology VIII

Rabies is 100% fatal, but it is preventable. More than 95% of human rabies cases occur in improperly treated individuals. This is partly due to the fact that modern post-exposure rabies prophylaxis is expensive and therefore not readily available in many endemic regions. Nervous tissue vaccine has been in use for more than 100yrs. These vaccines have now been superseded in purity, potency, immunogenicity and safety. The efficacy and immunogenicity of inactivated tissue culture rabies vaccine, produced in Ethiopia was evaluated. Twelve experimental dogs from local breed were duly conditioned during a quarantine period and assigned to two groups randomly. …

Novel Purification Strategies For Influenza Neuraminidase-Vlps, Leticia Guzmán-Ruiz, Miriam Klausberger, Florian Krammer, Alois Jungbauer, Reingard Grabherr

Vaccine Technology VIII

Conventional Influenza virus vaccines reduce the risk of flu illness by between 40% and 60% among the overall population. They are all standardized based on the influenza hemagglutinin (HA) content and focus on the induction of HA-specific neutralizing antibodies. However, in contrast to natural infection, seasonal vaccination fails to induce an efficient immune response to the Influenza virus neuraminidase (NA), the second most abundant viral glycoprotein. A potential solution to this problem would be to supplement current vaccines with a correctly folded, tetrameric recombinant NA protein, or alternatively, with bio-nanoparticles that display the tetrameric NA on an outer membrane. Vaccines …

Learnings From The Development Of Covid-19 Vaccines, Kathrin Jansen

Vaccine Technology VIII

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Developing A ‘One Health’ Nipah Virus Vaccine To Protect Animal And Public Health, Simon P. Graham

Vaccine Technology VIII

An expanding human population and the concomitant increase in demand for animal protein has led to the use of previously unused habitable land and disruption of ecosystems. Increased human-livestock-wildlife interactions has led to an increase in virus spillover events from wildlife reservoirs, which in turn has elevated the risk of epidemics of new and emerging zoonotic diseases. ‘One Health’ recognises that human, animal, and environmental health are tightly interconnected; an initiative that is righfully gaining more attention in the post-COVID-19 world. Vaccination is a powerful strategy to prevent and control viral outbreaks, as exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the …

Development Of An Oral Protein Subunit Covid-19 Vaccine To Induce Mucosal And Systemic Immune Response, Elodie Burlet, Nissy Thomas, Shanna Carwell, Brett Gershman, Garry Morefield

Vaccine Technology VIII

It is widely recognized that mucosal immunization is the most efficient route of delivery to offer protective immunity. Oral administration can boost the economic value of vaccines, make needle-free delivery possible, and allow for safe and convenient self-administration. Despite these critical advantages, there are very few oral or nasal COVID-19 vaccine in development, and none on the market. The main challenge for an efficacious vaccine administered orally is the need for an efficient antigen delivery system into the mucosa. VaxForm has developed a technology that consists of co-adsorbing antigen(s) and a C-type lectin (CTL) receptor agonist to an aluminum delivery …

Sterile Filtration Of Large Biomolecules - New Insights Using Live Attenuated Vaccines And Model Particle Suspensions, Adam Kristopeit, Wanli Ma, Sheng-Ching Wang, Neil Taylor, Andrew Zydney

Vaccine Technology VIII

Sterile filtration is widely used among manufacturers to sterilize vaccine antigens, utilizing 0.2 μm nominal pore size membranes to remove all bacteria. Incorporation of a sterile filtration step significantly reduces manufacturing burden by eliminating the need for a fully aseptic end-to-end manufacturing process. Although the sterile filtration of recombinant proteins is relatively straightforward, live attenuated viral (LAV) vaccines with large particle sizes (100 – 400 nm) pose significant challenges during sterile filtration, specifically low yields and capacities. Experimental studies were performed with both an LAV and a model particle system. Small differences in the average pore size of sterile filters …

Unveiling Process Knowledge For Plasmid Dna Fermentation Across Upstream Scales, Amélie Boulais, Lara Nascimento-Brooks

Vaccine Technology VIII

Plasmids DNA (pDNA) are small, circular pieces of DNA used to deliver genetic information and are key inputs in gene therapies, cell therapies, gene editing, and in particular mRNA vaccines and therapies. There are currently ~1,400 therapeutic assets in development across these modalities, with the pipeline expected to grow rapidly in the next years given the pandemic scenario. Developing biopharmaceuticals derived from microbial fermentation such as pDNA relies upon performant bioreactors to allow a rapid scale up to commercial batches. For this it is relevant to minimize any possible risks while developing a process that adheres to industry quality standards. …

Development Of Scalable Downstream Processing Platform For Hek293sf Cell-Based Influenza Vaccine Production, Amine Kamen, Xingge Xu, Zeyu Yang, Irene González Domínguez, Cécile Toussaint, Alice Bernier, Alina Venereo Sanchez, Omar Famos, Cristina Aglaia Alves Tottoli E Silva

Vaccine Technology VIII

Background: Research efforts during recent decades have demonstrated the suitability of mammalian cell culture platform for influenza vaccine production. Certainly, the potential of this system for a large-scale continuous vaccine manufacturing will enable a faster response to pandemic comparing with traditional egg-based production. Even though great advances have been achieved on the upstream processing of mammalian cell culture produced influenza vaccines, the downstream processing and quality of final product have still room for improvement or is still in development.

Please click Download on the upper right corner to see the full abstract.

Decisional Tools For Successful Commercialisation Of Novel Vaccine Technologies, Christos Stamatis, Tania D. Pereira Chilima, Jose Castillo, Suzanne Fraid

Vaccine Technology VIII

With the emergence of personalised cancer vaccines and more recently with the COVID-19 pandemic, the increasing need for novel and disruptive manufacturing and supply chain strategies to deliver affordable vaccines has been highlighted. Decision-support tools are essential to accelerate and enhance decision-making during the development, commercialisation and distribution of prophylactic or therapeutic vaccines across the globe. This presentation will share our most recent insights from UCL’s Bioprocess Decisional Tools research on modelling the economics of integrated and intensified manufacturing technologies for viral vectors and mRNA vaccines.

On the mRNA front, UCL collaborated with Univercells Technologies and Quantoom Biosciences to explore …

Overviews Of Vaccine Technology For Neglected Diseases In Developing Latin America Country - Peru, Karen D. Calvay Sanchez, Yanina Zarate Sulca, Giovanna Mendoza Mujica

Vaccine Technology VIII

Immunization has been the greatest strategy to prevent sickness and death associated with infectious diseases [1]. So, vaccine technology has evolved to produce more immunogenic vaccines and to avoid the exposure to disease-causing organisms during manufacturing and treatment [2]. Conversely, 2.5 million people are still dying globally each year from vaccine-preventable diseases since the underuse of vaccines and lack vaccines against non-well studied pathogens [2]. Only Cuba, Brazil and Argentina are listed as producers of vaccines against infectious diseases such as yellow fever, leishmaniasis and rotavirus [3]. The roles of mentioned developing countries are crucial because the produced vaccines are …

High Cell Density Culture For Vlp Production In Latent Virus-Free Insect Cell Line, Lena Achleitner, Peter Satzer, Alois Jungbauer

Vaccine Technology VIII

Continuous virus-like particle (VLP) production in insect cells with the baculo virus expression system faces numerous problems: The presence of defective interfering particles (DIPs) hinders continuous infection, cell growth is slower than virus replication, cell retention membranes and hollow fibres retain VLPs. High cell densities (HCD) can nevertheless enable VLP process intensification in small reactor vessels.

We were able to achieve a HCD with the Tnms42 insect cell line in both shaking flasks with pseudo perfusion and in the bioreactor utilizing an alternating tangential flow (ATF) filtration. Compared to some commercially available insect cell lines, this cell line has no …

Development Of A New Magnetic Bead Platform For Use In Gmp Production Of Mrna Vaccines, Marie Bosnes, Nini U.H. Kjus, Christopher Stensrud, Elisabeth Breivold, Ausra Kaleckiene, Axl Neurauter, Lene Aasveen

Vaccine Technology VIII

The success of mRNA vaccines in fighting the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has brought the world into a new era of vaccine development. The production methods are not yet standardized and the need for flexible and highly scalable production of mRNA is still urgent.

We have previously presented our magnetic bead technology, including solid-phase in vitro transcription and generic capture purification on carboxylic acid activated beads, enabling different flexible strategies for scaling up mRNA production. The same technology is easily adapted from research scale volumes to industrial volumes.

For use in the manufacture of Therapeutic agents, there are high regulatory demands for …

Evaluation Of A Low-Serum Medium For Growth And Virus Production With Mrc-5 Cells Cultured On Cytodex 1 Microcarriers, Michael Bruno, Haaris Huzair, Anna-Barbara Hachmann

Vaccine Technology VIII

Scale-up of suspension mammalian or insect cells to large bioreactors is commonly done in industry. However, some developers choose to scale-out adherent systems to produce desired components, since adherent systems are more challenging and costly to scale-up than suspension systems. Serum is often required for adherent cell culture, which can introduce lot-to-lot variability to the production process, can be cost-prohibitive, and raises ethical concerns. Additionally, increased global demand for serum is threatening to cause supply chain issues, which can impact manufacturing at scale. A process which reduces the concentration of serum while eliminating the challenges of scale-up for adherent systems …

Improved Ad26 Vaccine Stability By Mitigating Interaction Of Viral Particles With Glass Surfaces, Martinus Capelle, Olga Labovitiadi, Joao Calado Da Silva Freire

Vaccine Technology VIII

Long term vaccine stability at refrigerated temperatures (2-8°C and ambient) is critical to ensure a global reach of the vaccine using a standardized supply chain. During Ad26 clinical vaccine development, some instability at 2-8°C was observed which triggered a root cause investigation. There was a risk that the target shelf life of at least 2 years at 2-8°C would not be met.

The root cause was identified as adsorption of viral particles (vp’s) to the glass surface. This phenomenon is in particular observed upon inversion of the vial at 2-8°C due to the additional loss of vp’s to unexposed glass …

Microbial Platform For Vaccine Production For Low-And Medium-Income Countries (Lmics): 2 Case Studies, Salomé De Sá Magalhães, Stephen A. Morris, M. Lourdes Velez-Suberbie, Acep Riza Wijayadikusumah, Neni Nurainy, Eli Keshavarz-Moore

Vaccine Technology VIII

Vaccination is critical for the prevention and control of infectious-disease outbreaks, being of paramount importance to global health, they are a key component of primary health care and an indisputable human right. Yet far too many people around the world have insufficient access to vaccines. The limited availability and affordability of vaccines to resource low-income countries has created a need for solutions that will ensure effective, affordable vaccine production technology. With potential for more pandemics, the urgency to expand vaccine range has become even more evident.

We will present a collaborative project between UCL and PT Bio Farma in which …

Intranasal Administration Of Ndv-Hxp-S Covid19 Vaccines Induces Robust Protective Mucosal And Systemic Immunity In Mice, Stefan Slamanig, Weina Sun, Irene Gonzalez, Nicholas Lemus, Peter Palese

Vaccine Technology VIII

With the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) continually changing and no end of this pandemic in sight, a next generation of vaccines preventing transmission and an equitable allocation is needed in order to reduce global disease burden. The NDV-HXP-S vaccine is based on recombinant Newcastle disease virus (NDV) stably expressing a membrane-anchored, optimized (with six proline mutations – Hexa Pro) spike protein¹. Using the current influenza virus vaccine manufacturing facilities, this vaccine can be produced in embryonated eggs and thereby can meet the demands on a global scale at a low cost.

Here, we report that …

Upstream Process Optimization To Support Efficient Hek293 Cell Growth And Adenovirus Production, Syed Muaz Khalil, Wen-Yang Tsai, Anna-Barbara Hachmann

Vaccine Technology VIII

Development of effective vaccines against emerging and re-emerging pathogens is a worldwide public health priority. In response to the current pandemic, global vaccine manufacturers have developed several types of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, including adenovirus (AdV)-vector based vaccines. Production of viral vector vaccines requires optimization of several cell culture parameters. Using wildtype AdV type 5 infection with suspension HEK293 cells as a model system, we evaluated various conditions (including time of harvest, multiplicity of infection (MOI), cell density, insulin supplementation, and temperature shift) to optimize adenovirus production. In addition, we evaluated cell growth and AdV5 production in different chemically defined media and …

Test Tubes And Turnaround Times: An Accelerated Biosafety Testing Approach For New Vaccines Against Emerging Pathogens, Sarah Sheridan

Vaccine Technology VIII

Recent outbreaks of infectious viral disease such as those caused by SARS-CoV-2 and Ebola have led to the successful development and approval of vaccines at unprecedented speed. These achievements are possible by using an accelerated approach to vaccine development. For example, vaccine development under an accelerated or pandemic approach could take 18-24 months compared to the traditional approach of 5-10 years.

A critical part of vaccine development is clinical trials and a key step in this pathway is Quality Control (QC) biosafety testing of materials used in the manufacture of clinical trial material. The traditional approach for applying and performing …

Accurate And Precise Viral Quantification For Rapid Vaccine Development In- Process Production Monitoring Using Radiance® Laser Force CytologyTm, Christof Hasse, Zachary L. Evans, Colin G. Hebert, Sean J. Hart

Vaccine Technology VIII

The biopharmaceutical world is evolving rapidly, bringing with it the need for technologies to support this fast-paced and changing environment. Trends in biomanufacturing are moving towards shortened development cycles as companies balance increased productivity requirements with the goal of reducing costs while at the same time ensuring production consistencies are met and batch out of specification (OOS) and failure events are minimized. LumaCyte’s Radiance^® instrument using Laser Force Cytology™ (LFC), a combination of advanced optics and microfluidics to rapidly analyze single cells based upon their intrinsic biochemical and biophysical cellular properties and without the need for antibodies or labels. …

Development Of A Universal Group 2 Influenza Virus Vaccine Using Chimeric Hemagglutinin Constructs, Eduard Puente-Massaguer, Madhumathi Loganathan, Weina Sun, Peter Palese, Florian Krammer

Vaccine Technology VIII

The stalk domain of the hemagglutinin (HA) has become the prime target for universal influenza virus vaccine development in the last few years. Unlike the HA head domain, the immunosubdominant stalk domain is conserved to a higher level within each influenza virus HA group. Sequential vaccination with chimeric HA (cHA) vaccine constructs consisting of the same HA stalk and exotic head domains has proven to re-direct the immune response towards the stalk domain. This vaccination concept provides the basis for the development of more broadly cross-protective vaccines that are less affected by antigenic drift and shift, one of the main …

Sars-Cov-2 And Ebola: Cho-Based Manufacturing Provides High Quality Subunit-Vaccine Candidates And Diagnostics, Paco Pino

Vaccine Technology VIII

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Development Of A Pentavalent Group B Streptococcus (Gbs) Glycoconjugate Vaccine In Africa, Matthew Williams, Ebrahim Mohamed, Patrick Tippoo, Seanette Wilson

Vaccine Technology VIII

A vaccine against Group B Streptococcus (GBS), utilized in a maternal immunization strategy to reduce the burden of GBS mortality and morbidity in infants, has potential for use all over the world, but would have the greatest impact in low-resource countries that have limited access to interventions. Currently there is no vaccine against GBS. The Biovac Institute (Biovac), a private public partnership in South Africa, is developing a pentavalent, polysaccharide-protein conjugate vaccine (PCV) against GBS — using state-of-the-art technology and targeting the most common strains.

Please click Download on the upper right corner to see the full abstract.

Please click …

A Quality- By- Design Approach For The Implementation Of A Manufacturing License Change Using A Qualified Scale- Down Process Model, Shari Narayanan,, Kulwinder Banger, Jasmine Fearnley, Andrea Cme Rayat

Vaccine Technology VIII

Influenza vaccines are required to be re formulated every year to account for antigenic drift with recommendations coordinated by the World Health Organisation. This results in a short development cycle of only six months to be able to choose and characterise a suitable reassortant of a recommended strain and proceed to commercial manufacturing of the influenza antigen and vaccine product. Due to the ongoing healthcare crisis brought about the Covid-19 pandemic, the demand for influenza vaccines has increased rapidly requiring vaccine manufacturers to be able to meet this demand and be the first to market in the season. This has …