Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Talking Biotech is a weekly podcast that uncovers the stories, ideas and research of people at the frontier of biology and engineering.
Each episode explores how science and technology will transform agriculture, protect the environment, and feed 10 billion people by 2050.
Interviews are led by Dr. Kevin Folta, a professor of molecular biology and genomics.
Talking Biotech Podcast 399
Next Generation Livestock Vaccines - Joel Harris, CEO Genvax
Host: Dr. Kevin Folta
===
[00:00:00] Kevin Folta: Hey everybody, and welcome to this week's Talking Biotech podcast by Colabra, and it's episode 399 if you're counting in this weekly series and the last one. Of eight years in the weekly podcast. I really appreciate those of you who download, listen, tell a friend those who share it in social media, even those who retweet the notices of the new episodes every week.
Thanks a lot for that. It really helps because that's how this pirate ship with Noah certain university affiliation continues to grow. So thank you very much for that. And today's episode is one to share because it counters an emerging disinformation narrative in animal health space. The folks that create disinformation around covid and mRNA vaccines are witnessing a rapidly dec king spotlight, and their pandemic celebrity is waning, along with its financially lucrative bobbles of promoting conspiracy.
It is one born every minute, right? And we've seen the prominent personalities laterally slide in the conspiracies around glyphosate and also around the next generation vaccines used in livestock. Now targeting the technologies that keeps food abundant, safe, and affordable. Seems like a lousy idea, but it gets plenty of clicks and tweets.
Now animal healthcare is important. It's the right thing to do for animals, but it also helps farmers and ranchers and helps them remain competitive and keeps prices down for consumers. Vaccination is a critical part of animal health protection and the next generation of livestock vaccines. It's been in use for years with plenty of hopeful promise for beating some of the most insidious animal diseases going forward.
So today's guest is no stranger to the topic as his family has been in the animal care and vaccine area for decades. We're speaking with Joel Harris. He's the c e O of Gen vax. Welcome to the podcast, Joel.
[00:02:00] Joel Harris: Great to be here. Kevin.
[00:02:02] Kevin Folta: Yeah, I'm really glad you're aboard. This is such an important topic. And there's so much bad information out there already.
I wanted to make sure that people who are listening could hear from the experts about what this is and what it isn't. And so this way we can inform better and have them essentially deputized to go out and correct false information. So here we go. I, I guess the first best question is what's the current landscape of livestock vaccination and what animals are currently vaccinated on a regular schedule and for what diseases?
My
[00:02:32] Joel Harris: first disclosure is that I, I am a economist and not a veterinarian. You know, luckily I'm the son of two very talented and renowned veterinarians and PhDs, and, and I've been in the animal health industry my entire professional career. So for people to understand that we, we've been vaccinating animals really since the 18 hundreds.
It's an important health tool. It's given us the ability to drastically improved health worldwide for animals. It's allowed us to eradicate certain diseases over time and and then also I think, been able to be a good source for innovation in terms of, of public health as well. So vaccines are available today in swine cattle, other ruminants, poultry, and, and even aquaculture.
And there's several diseases that we currently vaccinate for across all livestock.
[00:03:27] Kevin Folta: Yeah, that's it's really an important not only an animal health measure, but also a public health measure because some of these things are zoonotic. So that, that's a really important point too. What are some of the major diseases that are not currently treated?
Because we know, we hear all the time about, oh, and I should mention that I'm in an alternative recording situation today. We have a live audience of about 250 animals here, so you'll hear some. Chickens and some turkeys and some dogs maybe. So let me go back to this. So with respect to those chickens, avian influenza, you know, massive problem and something that we have to be very careful with here with respect to biosecurity and what are some of the diseases, maybe like avian influenza that could use a vaccine that right now haven't benefited from these newer generation adaptable vaccines?
[00:04:19] Joel Harris: Yeah, I mean, avian influenza is obviously a big concern. Another one that gen VAX is focused on is African swine fever. So one of the reasons we don't vaccinate for African swine fever currently in the United States is that it, it is not present in the United States. But the other reason is, is that there's not a.
Well accepted approved vaccine for African swine fever and this disease is, is wildly contagious. It only in affects pigs. It's no threat to human health, but the mortality rate can be up to a hundred percent even within a few days. So it's, it's devastating to pig populations. It's, it's really burned through Africa and Eastern Europe and.
Most recently China and it, and it's causing billions and billions in economic losses. So we're focused our, our mRNA platform to develop a vaccine for African swine fever. Cuz it is something that's an unmet need that, that we. Most likely will face in the future.
[00:05:24] Kevin Folta: 50% of the swine herd in China was lost because of African swine fever.
[00:05:29] Joel Harris: And even though that's a high number, it's, it's probably even more than that. It's, you know, you're, we're relying on China to report those numbers. And needless to say, it's been devastating.
[00:05:40] Kevin Folta: Well, why are some diseases like African swine fever and some others, they're not amenable to traditional vaccine approaches?
And so how do the mRNA based vaccines address these viral issues that have broad variation within their populations and potentially are also susceptible to rapid mutation?
[00:05:59] Joel Harris: Yeah, I mean, a s F and other diseases there's multiple types or subtypes or, you know, the public might be more familiar with the term variance.
And these all have the potential for a mutation or just to evolve over time. And so this makes, creating a traditional vaccine where you may you know, modify it or, or inactivate it in some way really difficult and time intensive. And so the, using something like an mRNA platform where you can rapidly swap out potential genes of interest, that might be the protective antigen we can.
Rapidly within weeks and not years, test these different constructs and, and try to, you know, build a vaccine that way. And then beyond that, creating a subunit vaccine, which may be just a, a piece of, of the as f gene would be way, way more well accepted in an eradication effort, especially in the United States.
Because one of the things that. Would happen if we did have an As f. Outbreak is that it would immediately impact our exports of, of pork. In the US we export 20 to 25% of all the pork produced, and an ASF outbreak or a foot and mouth disease outbreak would immediately shut down those trade.
[00:07:20] Kevin Folta: Yeah.
So some companies that we saw during the Covid Pandemic really had a jumpstart. On the mRNA platform and all of its associated edges that really went back a few years. It wasn't just something that spawned with the pandemic and Harris vaccines and the, the parent or grandparent company, I guess of Gen Vax was really the maybe the good.
Analog of that on the animal side. So could you gimme a little bit of history on Harris vaccines and how the mRNA platform was an opportunity to investigate new types of vaccine approaches? Yeah, I
[00:07:57] Joel Harris: mean, I mean, this is a, this is actually a long multiple decade year initiative. The Harris Vaccines was founded in 2006.
My, my father. Dr. Hank Harris, who is working at Iowa State University was looking for a system to deliver unique genes of interest for a vaccine for a, for a swine vaccine called Purs, which is porcine reproductive respiratory syndrome virus. And through his, through his research and through one of his graduate students, Dr.
Matt Erdman, they came upon a company out of the Raleigh Research Triangle, part called Alpha Vax. Which had started to commercialize a, what's called a replica particle. Sometimes it's referred to as a RNA particle vaccine. But they were commercializing products in humans and we built a relationship with their scientists.
We founded the company and licensed that technology exclusively to be used in animal health and, and made our way to start to do that. One of the things that was a real turning point for the company was in 2013, a coronavirus came into the United States that only affected pigs called the acronym is P or p e d.
It's Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea Virus. It's a coronavirus. Because of all the work that had been done in, in the Stars outbreak in China in 2003 and 2004, we had an idea of how we could develop a vaccine for P E D. And we were the first company to get a U S D A approved vaccine to market in the United States.
That whole process was replicated again basically by Moderna and BioNTech. In 2019 for Covid 19, it's a coronavirus. There'd been all this ex this basic research done in SARS about two decades ago. And that's really, I mean, that's the jumpstart is that we have done all this work in other coronaviruses and other you know, potential pandemics that really set us up for the rapid response that occurred for Covid.
[00:10:13] Kevin Folta: So later then Harris Vaccines was eventually purchased by Merck, and then where do we currently find those products?
[00:10:20] Joel Harris: Yeah, right. So in 2015 Harris Vaccines, we exited the Merck Animal Health and I stayed on with Merck for a little while. That Harris technology has been rebranded as se Liquidity and it's a custom vaccine product line for swine in the United States.
Doing very well and it's Merck has been a, actually a fantastic partner in, in taking the technology and also supporting the people and the, the manufacturing facility that we set up in Iowa. So I'm very, very proud of that. Technology being out there in the market.
[00:10:59] Kevin Folta: Yeah, it's really cool.
Ity the website on the Merck website for ity is, is really cool and really just gives a sense of this rapidly adaptable and deployable technology. So the past relationship was Harris Vaccines that was eventually sold to Merck and now you're currently marketing vaccines and developing them through Gen Vax.
And so what's the relationship
[00:11:20] Joel Harris: there? Yeah, so we founded Gen VAX Technologies in February of 2021. We're still in a research and develop and product development phase. So we current, we currently don't sell any vaccines. We're just doing development work. But we're utilizing a, a self amplifying messenger RNA platform focus you know, primarily in swine, but we're looking at these different foreign animal diseases as potential targets for our first vaccines.
You know, really my father and I wanted to get back into this because of all the advancements on the human side for mRNA or RNA-based vaccines. And we really see this, this technology we're working with at Genvac as kind of the, the next step after Harris vaccines. I, I think Harris vaccines was a really important first step.
But there's still lots of opportunity and lots of biological threats out there that. There's not just gonna be one technology or one vaccine. We need to have a multi-tool of, of tools in the toolbox for, for all these infectious disease issues. And
[00:12:27] Kevin Folta: so what is it about swine that make them more amenable to these rapidly evolving viruses?
Or is it really just that there are more rapidly evolving viruses that affect swine? I mean, I think a
[00:12:38] Joel Harris: lot of the, the disease pressures that we have, especially infectious diseases, is isn't swine like, like swine influenza or purs that I mentioned earlier. But also, I mean, this platform can be used for other diseases as well, like rotavirus or even bactrum like, like cluster deal.
So, I mean, it, it really, it's not just the. You know, the disease pressures, but now there's also the regulatory framework through U S D A to allow for these customized vaccines to hit the market.
[00:13:14] Kevin Folta: Really, what I wanted to give the listeners a sense of here today with you was, this is nothing new. I mean, this is a technology that's been in development and, and under analysis and scrutiny for a long time now.
And yet the buzz on the street and in social media says these are new, they're untested. That it's, it's a completely you know, novel technology. So how long have these technologies really been in development for livestock applications,
[00:13:41] Joel Harris: the replica particle or r n a particle? You know, is a type of mRNA vaccine that's been approved since our first product was approved in 2012 for swine influenza.
We then got subsequent approvals for P E D in 2013. We got an avian influenza product approved in 2015. And then in 2016 the U S D A approved. This prescription platform or the ability to do these custom vaccines, and all of these have been under, you know, significant scrutiny in terms of safety and efficacy.
Environmental impact. There are mandatory withdrawal periods that are studied and utilized before a vaccine is approved. And so it's it, it goes under a pretty strict. Scrutiny under the U S D A Center for Vet Biologics for a product to be used in the market.
[00:14:39] Kevin Folta: Well, you mentioned that there's an avian influenza vaccine that was approved back in, what was it, 2015.
And so why, why hasn't that been more widely deployed?
[00:14:50] Joel Harris: It again, it goes back to. Well, there's several reasons for it, but the one I I point to is there's a concern about trade. So if you start vaccinating for a foreign animal disease like avian influenza, our trading partners will, will all of a sudden start banning those exports to the, or imports of US poultry.
I think you'll see in the industry that the, the broilers. You know, don't want those trade restrictions to happen and they can repopulate a broiler production facility, you know, in a couple months or a matter of weeks. It's where you see the egg producers and the Turkey producers, which can take, you know, six months or a year to repopulate the facility.
They're the ones that would probably benefit more from a vaccine. So it, I mean, it's, it's complicated. It's a political issue. It's a has to do with economics. And so the vaccine we got approved in 2015, along with a few other animal pharma companies was stockpiled. But that was for the 2015 strain.
And like, like swine influenza, avian influenza evolves and mutates and so stock filing vaccines for something that may be outta date or that you can't predict is going to happen is, is really becoming maybe an antiquated approach.
[00:16:19] Kevin Folta: And the, we talked a little bit about what kind of vaccines these are, and those of us who paid attention to the.
Covid pandemic. We saw these lipid coded nanoparticles. We've seen mRNAs that were introduced through viral vectors, but these are a little bit different. You've mentioned it a couple times already. Could you give us a little more insight as to what a replica particle vaccine
[00:16:41] Joel Harris: is? Replica particle is the system where you have the, the messenger RNA or the replica.
And so this is, this is the part where you insert your, your gene of interest for the antigen you're trying to express. And then you have the delivery system, which, which encodes that replica. And so that delivery system, the particle is what is basically then what the vaccine is. So it's not a lipid nanoparticle, it's, it's really utilizing.
These alpha viruses, the non-structural and structural proteins, they're to deliver the, the messenger rna, which will then deliver. The instructions to make the antigen for what you're trying to vaccinate
[00:17:26] Kevin Folta: against? No. Very good. So it's a little bit different than what people have been talking about in other areas, even though there are some other examples of these of the, what we can think of now as traditional mRNA vaccines, which are being developed for animals.
So lots of good things happening on many levels. So we're speaking with Joel Harris. He's the c e O of Gen VAX Technologies, and this is the Talking Biotech podcast by collab. And we'll be back in just a moment.
And now we're back on the Talking Biotech Podcast by Col Collabora, and we're talking to Joel Harris. He's the C e O of Gen VAX Vaccines. And we're speaking about the newest suite of modalities that are being used to vaccinate animals using next generation vaccine technologies. And maybe we should look at some of the big success stories, cuz on the podcast we've talked about purs, we've talked about lots of different animal diseases over the last.
Eight years. And specifically with respect to Harris Vaccines, what were some of the big success stories of these technologies? The biggest
[00:18:27] Joel Harris: thing was that when we first started Harris Vaccines, there wasn't a regulatory framework, you know, to even approve. Not just our technology, but really a lot of these up and coming novel vaccine technologies.
So it took us almost 10 years of working with regulators showing the safety, showing the efficacy, showing the potency. Establishing, you know, the best manufacturing processes. A lot of, a lot of trial and error to get the government and, and the regulators to understand the value of this technology.
And then it took foreign an or foreign animal disease outbreaks like, like swine influenza in, in 2009 or. Porcine epidemic diarrhea in 2013 Orian influenza in 2015 to to shed light that we needed a rapid response. Platform. And so, you know, one of the, one, I think the, the hugest accomplishments of Harris Vaccines is, is not only validating the technology but getting the regulatory framework in place so that other technologies and other companies can, can bring these innovations to market.
And this is the same process that we will use at Genvac Technologies to bring. To bring our next generation mRNA platform
[00:19:44] Kevin Folta: to market. Well, can we talk about pipeline? I mean we've discussed a couple different diseases that would be nice to be able to resolve, and so what are some of the most important part targets in the pipeline?
[00:19:56] Joel Harris: Yeah, so I mean, there's a lot of diseases that currently get vaccines. Swine influenza, we've mentioned Purs Porcine Cerco virus is a, is a very big vaccine market in the United States that I think that we think there's an opportunity to disrupt there. And then there's these foreign animal diseases that we're very concerned about, including foot and mouth disease, which can impact.
Cattle swine and other ruminants. A African swine fever, classical swine fever, which I don't think gets, you know, really a lot of attention. But that is something that you know, is just as a big concern, I think as, as foot and mouth or African swine fever. And so these are kind of the things that, that we keep an eye on.
I think that, again, it's, this really is a technology play, so it, it truly is a platform so that. If we can validate it for a handful of diseases, it puts us in a position to, to develop new vaccines for emerging diseases or these zoonotic diseases that, that we, that maybe don't even have a market or we're not even aware of that, that they could be a threat.
When
[00:21:05] Kevin Folta: we look online, there's like oodles of misinformation that's being generated around these vaccines and maybe not even necessarily. You know, these specific technologies, but across the board and vaccines in general. But some of the one specific to livestock say, well, these are just vaccines that are being put into animals because now you'll eat the animals and then you'll be inoculating the consumer.
And how much is this a concern or not a concern?
[00:21:33] Joel Harris: So, yeah, Kevin, I mean, it, it's simply false. It's not possible for the vaccine to be present in meat. That you or I would consume. The, the half-lifes of these components of RNA based vaccines is very short, you know, too short to ever be present in meat that makes its way to the grocery store.
You know, enzymes are present in cells and also in the blood that rapidly degrade the components of rna BA based vaccines into small, naturally occurring molecules that aren't toxic or even capable to have any negative human related effects. R n a is very fragile and sensitive and degrades rapidly all around us.
So having said that, you know, the misinformation in your question is very concerning. Conspiracy theories or this nature can have a negative consequence on the ability to prevent and control diseases in livestock. Which can turn, you know, be devastating economic effects on producers and consumers. I mean, the again, as in as the son of veterinarians, they're very focused on herd health, you know, judicious use of antibiotics and, and making sure that the animals are, are productive.
So there's, there's a lot of forethought that goes into these herd health plans. And I, I would just encourage producers out there that, that have questions to continue to work with their herd health professionals, you know, their veterinarians, their nutritionists cuz these real, these, these folks work really hard and have a passion for you know, helping out producers and, and animal welfare.
[00:23:12] Kevin Folta: And it's a really good point. I mean, this is all about animal care and animal health. And as a guy who's worked with mRNA for 35 years, and I, I swear at the stuff, because you gotta keep it cold, you gotta treat it right? If you look at it funny, it falls apart and there's no way it's going to survive in a a piece of meat in a grocery store for, you know, however long that is.
And so this, all of those seem like non-issues. But one of the silver linings of the Covid pandemic was that, at least brought some of these new technologies to the fore in terms of public discussion. So was it, you know, isn't that effect a good thing or a bad thing with respect to discussion of these new technologies?
[00:23:54] Joel Harris: Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, I wanna be clear that obviously that, you know, the Covid pandemic wasn't a good thing. It, you know, it didn't. Introduce any alternative technology. All of all of these technologies utilized had either partly been developed by companies we worked with at Harris Vaccines, or what we had shown through our vaccine development at Harris Vaccines or, or stuff that even predates us.
And so, you know, I believe that, so I, I agree with you on the fact that the awareness has been a good and a bad thing because in, in 2012, I had a hell of a time explaining to investors and customers and the general public, you know, what we were trying to do. And now everybody off the street knows what an mRNA vaccine or, or they think they know what it is.
But I truly believe that RNA-based vaccines would've gathered momentum without covid. I think covid just like other industries or other technologies, advanced things very quickly. And so, so yeah, I mean it's, it's a double edged sword for sure.
[00:25:05] Kevin Folta: And along that line, how can livestock farmers and ranchers, maybe even national organizations, really help build the public discussion of these technologies in a favorable way so that as they're introduced, they don't cause public panic and don't give fuel to the disinformation machine?
[00:25:24] Joel Harris: Yeah, I mean, I mean, we talked a lot about, you know, scientifically, How safe these RNA based vaccines are. But even, even with that, there is these regulatory things in place like withdrawal periods, which, you know, as a, as a scientist or other groups maybe like, well, why do you even need to do that?
Well, we do that for that assurance, right? I mean, we do these, these studies to show safety and show efficacy. You know, to, to, and have that U S D A stamp of approval to give customers and consumers that you know, that self of, of safety or whatever you want to call it, security. And then, I mean, I would point to the fact that the National Cattlemen's beef Association, the National Pork Producers Council are working, you know, to build the.
You know, the, the data and the narrative on how these mRNA vaccines are safe. They've been around for decades. They've been used for decades. We, we feel very comfortable about it. And they're, and they're advocating for legislation, especially around the Farm Bill, to support the national Vaccine Stockpile to support other veterinary countermeasures against foreign animal diseases and preparedness.
And to work with the d the different national animal health diagnostic labs. So, so those associations understand the, the value of vaccines and other. Health measures. And so I think along with them, and again, your vet, your nutritionist, I mean, these are all, should be all trusted sources of information.
Very good.
[00:27:07] Kevin Folta: And if listeners wanted to learn more about Gen vax, where would they look? Online or social media?
[00:27:14] Joel Harris: Yeah, so we're just www dot gen vax, so g e n v ax.com. And. We're on Twitter at, at Genvac Tech, and then also on, on LinkedIn. And yeah, so we're, again, we're in the r and d stages, but moving right along.
[00:27:33] Kevin Folta: Yeah. Well, thank you very much. So Joel Harris thank you very much for joining me at to on today's podcast. Best wishes going forward, and please feel free to contact me and use this platform whenever the next big breakthrough comes through because this is so important and I, I, I can't underscore enough how important it is towards fu food security, but also animal welfare and also keeping our farmers in business.
So thank you very much for your time today.
[00:27:57] Joel Harris: Thanks for having
[00:27:58] Kevin Folta: me, Kevin. And really, that's the big point. These are vaccines that have so many potential benefits for animals, for farmers, for the consumer. It is so critical that we understand what these are and what they aren't, and freely and frequently combat disinformation when we.
Find it. It's very important for us to have all modalities and all tools on the table if we're going to take on the next generations of animal and human disease. This is a Talking Biotech podcast, and we'll talk to you again next week.