PhD Scientific Days 2024

Poster Session B - Pharmaceutical Sciences and Health Technologies 1.

Development of an AAV bioproduction technological platform in microalgae

Text of the abstract

Recombinant adeno-associated viral vectors (rAAV) are vehicles of choice for in vivo gene therapy approaches. The success of clinical trials using rAAV for the treatment of rare genetic diseases has led to the commercialization of already six rAAV-based next-generation therapies capable of treating the genetic cause of many previously incurable pathologies. Today's scientific advances make it possible to treat more complex diseases using systemic routes of administration, for which the necessary doses of rAAV are increasingly important. The field of rAAV manufacturing is thus facing new challenges: producing quality viral vectors, in large quantity and at reduced cost. Existing technologies for rAAV manufacturing are effective, but remain extremely costly when the product achieves the commercial scale because of the need of highly complex culture media. Microalgae are eukaryotic organisms that can produce bioproducts in the presence of minimal requirement (light and simple media). Microalgae large scale culture system in bioreactors are already applied on an industrial scale for the production of recombinant proteins. The GREEN-AAV project (under the national initiative Grand défi Bioproduction) is an ambitious and innovative project aiming at the evaluation of the feasibility and potential of a new microalgae cellular platform for rAAV manufacturing.