Colorado State-based researchers push closer to universal flu vaccine

Amy Aspelund spends her days working to develop better flu vaccines. This year’s flu season reminded her how important that research is.  

Aspelund and her team at Vivaldi Biosciences, a company based at the Research Innovation Center at Colorado State University, are working on a flu vaccine called deltaFLU that could fight more strains and get to market more quickly.

The flu causes people to miss work, Aspelund said, and it’s generally ranked in the top 10 causes of death each year.

One child died from flu this year in Colorado, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, which only tracks flu-related deaths in children.

The December death of an 8-month-old child in Larimer County is still under investigation to determine if it is flu-related, Debbie Reisdorff of the Larimer County Coroner Office said in an email.

In Larimer County, 73.5 per 100,000 people were diagnosed between Oct. 1 and March 10, the most recent data available from the state health department. There were 166 flu outbreaks, the highest number ever recorded, in the 2017-18 flu season.

“We’re trying to work with the global community to make a vaccine that will ultimately benefit people,” said Aspelund, head of research and development for Vivaldi, which also works out of Vienna, Austria.

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DeltaFLU is different from your typical flu shot, Aspelund said. It’s a nasal spray.

So far studies show it offers broader protection against multiple different kinds of flu strains. The way they produce it, Aspelund said, also allows them to react faster to changes in flu strains or pandemic-like viruses.

Carrie Wick, spokeswoman for Vivaldi Biosciences, said they grow the vaccine on human cells.

“Most flu vaccines are grown on chicken eggs,” Wick said. “That’s been the standard for 70 years now.”

It’s faster and more economical to grow the vaccine on cells, Wick said. With that method, Aspelund and her team can develop a new vaccine in about 12 weeks. The egg process, Wick said, can take six months.

That kind of adaptability can help in the event of a pandemic, Aspelund said. But it can also help with the regular old flu, as strains change each year and they can be difficult to predict correctly.

Depending on the year, licensed vaccines are typically only 40 percent to 60 percent effective.

“There’s a lot of room for improvement,” Aspelund said.

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The researchers are working to make one vaccine more effective against several different flu strains, not just the ones circulating at any given time, Wick said. That’s what is typically referred to as a universal flu vaccine.

“We have data in ferrets, soon to be humans, that our vaccine would be cross protective,” Wick said.

That could mean that people would have to get flu shots less often, Aspelund said.

The deltaFLU vaccine passed clinical studies phase 1 and 2, which involved 245 adult volunteers. The studies showed the vaccine is safe and does produce an immune response. A nonclinical study with ferrets showed broad cross-protection between distantly related flu strains in a nonclinical study.

Bill Wick, CEO of Vivaldi Biosciences, said they’re working to raise money to begin human trials. Those funds typically come from the government or a private donor.

“Then we’d do a human trial,” Bill Wick said. “If that’s successful, we’d move to phase three.”

Thomas Muster, Vivaldi’s chief scientific officer, will present the data April 4 at the World Vaccine Congress in Washington, D.C.

To learn more

To learn more about the research at Vivaldi Biosciences, go to www.vivaldibiosciences.com.