Journal of Clinical and Cellular Immunology
Open Access
ISSN: 2155-9899
ISSN: 2155-9899
Andrea Fritzer, Urban Lundberg, Nina Wressnigg, Mario Nebenfuhr and Andreas Meinke
Valneva Austria GmbH, Austria
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Clin Cell Immunol
Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquito-borne virus resulting in many patients in chronic and incapacitating
arthralgia affecting all gender and age groups. CHIKV was typically transmitted by Aedes aegypti mosquitos
however, an adaptation enabled unusually efficient transmission by Aedes albopictus mosquitos. Thus, the virus reemerged
in 2004 and rapidly spread over Africa, Asia, the Americas and locally also in Europe since then. CHIKV
is regarded as one of the most-likely re-emerged viruses to spread globally. Morbidity due to this virus is considered
a serious threat to global public health raising an urgent demand for efficient prophylaxis. However, at present there
is no treatment or vaccine available. Facing the unmet medical need for a prophylactic intervention, we initiated a
program to develop a vaccine candidate (VLA1553) against CHIKV infections. Valneva�??s live-attenuated CHIKV
vaccine candidate, VLA1553, is based on the La Reunion strain of the East Central South African genotype. The
Vero cell based vaccine is characterized by a 60 amino acid deletion in the nsP3 viral replicase complex gene leading
to attenuation of the virus in vivo. The safety, immunogenicity as well as protective efficacy of the vaccine candidate
was evaluated in mice and non-human primates. We demonstrate, that our vaccine candidate is highly attenuated in
animal models and causes no clinical manifestations typically associated with wild-type CHIKV infections in addition
to strongly reduced viremia and cytokine levels. Moreover, VLA1553 is highly immunogenic and induces a strong
and long-lasting neutralizing antibody response in animal models. In addition, cross-neutralizing antibodies against
a Caribbean CHIKV strain are induced. VLA1553 protects against a high dose wild-type CHIKV challenge after a
single immunization and no anamnestic response was observed after challenge. Due to its safe and immunogenic
potential we entered into a blinded, randomized phase 1 first-in-human clinical study investigating the safety and
immunogenicity of three dose levels administered intramuscularly in a CHIKV-naive population as a single-shot
immunization designed to elicit long-term immunological memory (NCT:NCT03382964).
Recent Publications
1. Hallengard D, Kakoulidou M, Lulla A, Kümmerer BM, Johansson DX, Mutso M, Lulla V, Fazakerley JK, Roques
P, Le Grand R, Merits A, Liljestrom P (2014) Novel attenuated Chikungunya vaccine candidates elicit protective
immunity in C57BL/6 mice. J Virol 88:2858-2866.
2. Roques P, Ljungberg K, Kümmerer BM, Gosse L, Dereuddre-Bosquet N, Tchitchek N, Hallengard D, Garcia-
Arriaza J, Meinke A, Esteban M, Merits A, Le Grand R, Liljestrom P (2017) Attenuated and vectored vaccines
protect nonhuman primates against Chikungunya virus. J Clin Invest Insight 2:e83527.
Andrea Fritzer is currently Senior Scientist at Valneva Austria GmbH, which is a fully integrated, commercial stage biotech company, focused on developing innovative and life-saving vaccines. Andrea has gained in her 13 years working in the field of biotechnology and vaccine research, a broad and solid background in molecular biology, bacteriology, virology and immunology. Additionally, she has worked in the field of therapeutic monoclonal antibody discovery and antibody engineering. Her primary function at Valneva is to coordinate various projects advancing them from preclinical development into clinical studies with focus not only on in vitro assay development but also on the initiation and continuation of research collaborations. Valneva’s chikungunya vaccine VLA1553 is currently her main project where she is supporting the progress of VLA1553 to enter the next clinical phase.
E-mail: Andrea.FRITZER@valneva.com