3RD INDIGO Project Consortium Meeting Held In-Person In India
The Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) hosted the 3rd INDIGO Consortium Meeting—the 2nd in-person gathering—on November 18 and 19, 2024. Representatives from all partner institutes participated both on-site and virtually, presenting project updates, current statuses, achieved deliverables and milestones, projected completion dates, identified risks, and future plans. Additionally, the project management team convened for a brief discussion on November 20, 2024.
As the project is in its 5th year, several achievements could be shared. Though the first clinical trial for the seasonal vaccine with an innovative adjuvant, TETRALITE was delayed due to the delay in start up due to to the covid pandemic, after that initial delay all went according to the new plan and the last visit of second clinical trial I Europe (phase 1b) was recently finalized. Results were only expected half of 2025 as planned, and analysis just started. The status on the work to unravel the mode of action of LVA by bulk and single cell RNA sequencing was presented.
Meanwhile the preparation for the Phase 1 trial in India is ongoing, and it was shared that the clinical trial application could be submitted on a short term. Also, data from the initial vaccination study with a commercial vaccine in Indian adults were shown and these are ready to submit for publication. The delay in the start of the clinical trial in India necessitates extension of stability studies to 4 years. At the last timepoint of 3 years no significant changes were found in the parameters tested.
For PANDEMICPLUS it was shown the major issues with production and stability have been solved and the latest generation of constructs has been produced and is ready for testing, both in human PBMCs in India as well as animal models in Europe.
Further, the next generation of optimized MDPA was presented and the work with the dermal patches was approved by DBT and can now start. The two PhD students working on vaccine implementation topics - one the legal framework of vaccination and one on vaccine acceptation – have gathered a lot of data, of which they presented some main findings. They are currently writing manuscripts for publication of the data and finalizing their theses.
Further, we discussed the ethics review by the EU earlier in 2024 and the amendment and no cost extension that will be submitted to the EU. And we enjoyed an interesting tour around the premises of THSTI, where we visited several labs as well as the recently renovated animal facilities.
It was a very useful meeting for exchanging ideas and current next collaborative steps for the project with interesting presentations and also full of nice interactions and Indian hospitality.