UQ researchers are developing vaccines that can be changed and manufactured for the entire Australian population within days of a new virus appearing.

Immunising people with vaccines that are quick and inexpensive to produce is the answer to preventing large-scale spread of infectious disease, Professor Anton Middelberg from UQ's Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology says.

Using modern molecular and bioprocessing tools, Professor Middelberg and his team are developing vaccines that can be changed and manufactured for the entire Australian population within days of a new virus appearing.

The new vaccines we are developing are also much cheaper to mass-produce than traditional technologies, so are relevant where cost is an issue for example, in the developing world, Professor Middelberg said.

We use biotechnology to create the safe parts of a virus, and then we use nanotechnology to assemble these building blocks into a virus-like particle (VLP) in a reactor.

VLPs resemble viruses but, as they only use the safe part of the virus, they are not infectious.

However, being a safe mimic of the dangerous virus, they raise an excellent immune response.

Biotechnology allows us to make VLPs rapidly using bacteria, and the VLPs can be manipulated within reactors (not cells) to change composition and target the new disease-causing agent.

This enables an incredibly fast response to new threats.

Professor Middelberg said vaccines needed to be affordable.

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Making cheap vaccines quickly