Applications of platform technologies in veterinary vaccinology and the benefits for one health.

The animal-human interface has played a central role in advances made in vaccinology for the past two centuries. Many traditional veterinary vaccines were developed by growing, attenuating, inactivating and fractioning the pathogen of interest. While such approaches have been very successful, we have reached a point where they have largely been exhausted and alternative approaches are required. Furthermore, although subunit vaccines have enhanced safety profiles and created opportunities for combined discrimination between vaccinated and infected animal (DIVA) approaches, their functionality has largely been limited to diseases that can be controlled by humoral immunity until very recently. We now have a new generation of adjuvants and delivery systems that can elicit CD4 + T cells and/or CD8 +  T cell responses in addition to high-titre antibody responses. We review the current vaccine platform technologies, describe their roles in veterinary vaccinology and discuss how knowledge of their mode of action allows informed decisions on their deployment with wider benefits for One Health.

Considerations for rapid development and licencing of conventional and platform technology veterinary vaccines.

The threat posed by zoonotic diseases and other livestock pathogens has never been greater, and thus we must do all we can to learn from experience in order to tackle emerging disease threats. The process of developing a new veterinary vaccine involves the generation of a specific set of data in order to meet the strict product licencing requirements of regulatory approval bodies around the globe. As a result, it is important that those embarking on the development of a vaccine using either conventional or novel platform technologies understand these regulations. In addition, there are a number of specific requirements that one needs to take into consideration when developing a product specifically for the commercial poultry market. This paper briefly outlines the veterinary vaccine development process in general and then explores how this process can be accelerated. It also recognizes the "One Health" lessons that can be learnt from the recent rapid development of vaccines to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and acknowledges the important measures that regulatory authorities have taken in the creation of an environment to facilitate the licencing of new vaccine platform technologies.

Spotlight on avian pathology: the importance of recombinant vector platform technologies in poultry vaccination.

The use of novel vector vaccines (viral, bacterial and apicomplexan) can have a significant impact on the control of poultry disease. They offer a cost effective, convenient and effective means of mass vaccine delivery combined with the ability to switch on both antibody and cell-mediated immunity. In addition, recent viral vector constructs have enabled farmers to vaccinate against up to three important pathogens with a single in ovo administration. As the technology develops, it is likely that this means of vaccine administration will be utilized further and it will play a key role in the control of both existing and new emerging diseases of poultry in the future.

A Veterinary Vaccine Development Process Map to assist in the development of new vaccines.

The UK Government recognised the importance of vaccines in the control of new emerging disease threats and in 2015 established the UK Vaccine Network to focus on specific areas of need. One of these was the understanding of what is involved in the development of a new vaccine and what are the potential bottlenecks to a rapid response in the face of an epidemic such as Ebola, MERS and more recently COVID-19. A Working Group was established to initially produce a Vaccine Development Process Map for a Human Vaccine. However, in view of the importance of animal wellbeing and the significant impact of diseases with Zoonotic potential, a similar Map has been created outlining the Veterinary Vaccine Development Process. This paper describes the production of that Map and covers the process from the generation of a Target Product Profile (TPP) through Discovery and Feasibility, and on to Product Development and Registration.

Recent Advances in Vaccine Technologies.

This brief review discusses some recent advances in vaccine technologies with particular reference to their application within veterinary medicine. It highlights some of the key inactivated/killed approaches to vaccination, including natural split-product and subunit vaccines, recombinant subunit and protein vaccines, and peptide vaccines. It also covers live/attenuated vaccine strategies, including modified live marker/differentiating infected from vaccinated animals vaccines, live vector vaccines, and nucleic acid vaccines.