Industrial processes for vaccines production

Abstract

The idea of protection and immunization against diseases that vaccines have generated since their conceptualisation has forever changed the way in which humanity has dealt with epidemics, allowing us to go on the offensive and dream of eradicating previously lethal plagues. But this progress has not only come from the hand of science, society as a whole has had to adapt to this new reality and regulatory bodies and laws have emerged to guarantee and provide security to the general population. With society increasingly able to access information and therefore able to speak up when doubts or uncertainties arise, it is the responsibility of science and engineering to be fully transparent and to work flat out to obtain results that satisfy everyone. In the field of vaccines, this has translated into the development of new types of vaccines different from those traditionally used, such as messenger RNA vaccines like those approved for the fight against COVID-19. But it has not stopped there. The entire production process, from the selection of the cell culture to be used to the addition of stabilisers just prior to distribution, has been innovated as needed. In upstream processing, higher and higher yields of cells are achieved in which to grow the pathogen or antigen needed for the vaccine, and improvements have also been made in the design of stirrers and the growth medium itself. While in downstream processing, with increasingly severe restrictions on quality control with respect to contaminants or residues, higher and higher yields are being achieved using technologies such as chromatography, diafiltration or gradient centrifugation All of this has made it possible to dream that dealing with increasingly complex diseases caused by infectious agents is no longer a utopia. There are still many open fronts and the publication of articles investigating or opening up new possibilities is enormous, which is why the review of the industrial process for obtaining vaccines carried out in this work does its bit to help disseminate the knowledge accumulated so far