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Canada building facilities to make vaccines for COVID-19 and other viruses – CBC.ca

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4 years ago

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In the initial sprint to create a vaccine for COVID-19, Pfizer and Moderna crossed the finish line first. But for Canadian researchers who continue to work away at coronavirus vaccines and therapeutics, there are still big potential wins ahead.

While priority groups are already being inoculated against the virus thanks to vaccine shipments arriving from Europe, researchers like Volker Gerdts, CEO of Saskatoon’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO), have their sights set on Canada’s long game.

“It is important for us, for Canadians, to have long-term access to made-in-Canada vaccines,” he said.

Gerdts’ team was among the first out of the gate with promising COVID-19 research, but did not have the manufacturing capability to create vaccine components needed to keep its momentum going. It was a temporary setback that shed light on essential gaps in Canadian infrastructure. With new funding from multiple levels of government, the team has started building what it needs to create human vaccines in-house well into the future.

It’s a long-term strategy being pursued from the very top. According to Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, “When this pandemic began, Canada had no flexible, large-scale biomanufacturing capacity suitable for a COVID-19 vaccine.”

Spurred by the urgent need for COVID-19 vaccines and with hundreds of millions of dollars in new federal funding, several teams are now building the infrastructure Canada needs to take advanced vaccine research and make it into a product within the country’s borders.

Scaffolding outside the lab at the University of Saskatchewan is a sign of the ongoing renovations there. After they’re completed next fall, the upgrades could allow researchers to make up to 40 million doses of the VIDO team’s COVID-19 vaccines each year.

Workers in Saskatoon are expanding the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) facility at the University of Saskatchewan. (CBC)

Crucially, Gerdts said, the facility will be “open to all Canadians, and in fact all international groups that are looking for it” to pilot promising developments.

“For the country to be better prepared, we need to have this capacity,” he added.

Other projects are also underway to achieve this goal. One of the largest involves Quebec-based biopharmaceutical company Medicago, which has experience developing rapid responses to emerging viruses, such as Ebola and H1N1. The company has received $173 million in federal funding to move ahead with its COVID-19 vaccine research, and to establish a large-scale Canadian manufacturing facility in Quebec City.

Its aim is “to first develop new technologies to react rapidly, but also to be able to protect our own citizens,” said Nathalie Charland, a senior director with Medicago.

Nathalie Charland, a senior director with Medicago, says the company hopes to be able to produce anywhere between 500 million and 1 billion doses of vaccine per year by 2023 at its new plant being built in Quebec City. (Medicago)

The company’s plant-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate is now in Phase 2 clinical trials. If things go according to plan, there will be 80 million doses by the end of this year, produced at facilities in Canada and the U.S.

By the end of 2023, Medicago expects to be making vaccines from start to finish in the new manufacturing plant in the eastern part of Quebec City.

“We hope to be able to produce anywhere between 500 million and 1 billion doses per year,” Charland said.

That’s enough to help the Canadian population with ongoing vaccine needs, but also the world, which Charland points out will require billions of doses to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.

A researcher at Medicago works on a vaccine. If things go according to plan, there will be 80 million doses of its vaccine by the end of this year, produced at facilities in Canada and the U.S. (Medicago)

‘We need to reverse that trend’

Canada has been a global leader in vaccine development before. In the middle of the last century, public labs in Ontario and Quebec provided the ability to produce them here at home. Toronto’s Connaught Laboratories played a key role in developing the polio vaccine in the 1950s, for example.

However, through privatization and globalization, “we lost that capacity,” said Scott Halperin, director of the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Now, Halperin said, “we need to reverse that trend.”

Vaccine independence is important, he said, because relying on relationships with other countries to secure supplies of vaccines doesn’t always work.

“Countries and governments tend to think about their own populations first,” he said. “And they’re not necessarily going to want vaccines to leave their borders before their own population’s needs are met.”

Researchers work on a COVID-19 vaccine at Saskatoon’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) lab. (Bonnie Allen/CBC)

Halperin also pointed out that this likely won’t be the last time Canadians require a new vaccine or therapeutic to combat a new virus. Avoiding another “mad rush” to access vaccines in that case, he said, is key.

For that reason, Volker Gerdts hopes Canada continues to support domestic vaccine research and production, even after the pandemic. With Zika, SARS, MERS and other diseases that have cropped up over the past few years, he said, future viruses are to be expected.

Beyond Canadians’ potential ongoing need for coronavirus vaccines and boosters down the road, he added, “what we really are also preparing for at the same time by doing all of this [is] the next pandemic, the next emerging disease.”

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Opinions on what Tagovailoa should do next vary after his 3rd concussion since joining Dolphins

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26 mins ago

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September 13, 2024

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MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Nick Saban has a message for Tua Tagovailoa: Listen to experts, then decide what happens next.

Antonio Pierce had another message: It’s time to retire.

Saban, Pierce and countless others within the game were speaking out Friday about Tagovailoa, the Miami Dolphins quarterback who is now dealing with the third confirmed concussion of his NFL career — all coming within the last 24 months. He was hurt in the third quarter of the Dolphins’ 31-10 loss to the Buffalo Bills on Thursday night, leaving the game after a scary and all-too-familiar on-field scene.

“This has to be a medical decision,” Saban said on ESPN, where the now-retired coach works as an analyst. “I mean, you have to let medical people who understand the circumstances around these injuries, these concussions — and when you have multiple concussions, that’s not a good sign.

“I think Tua and his family and everyone else should listen to all the medical evidence to make sure you’re not compromising your future health-wise by continuing to play football.”

That process — gathering the medical facts — was getting underway in earnest on Friday, when Tagovailoa was set to be further evaluated at the team’s facility. He was diagnosed with a concussion within minutes of sustaining the injury on Thursday and there is no timetable for his return.

“I’ll be honest: I’d just tell him to retire,” Pierce, the coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, said Friday. “It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it to play the game. I haven’t witnessed anything like I’ve seen that’s happened to him three times. Scary. You could see right away, the players’ faces on the field, you could see the sense of urgency from everybody to get Tua help. He’s going to live longer than he’s going to play football. Take care of your family.”

Concern — and opinions — have poured in from all across the football world ever since Tagovailoa got hurt. It is not a surprising topic — the questions of “should he? or shouldn’t he?” continue to play — nor is this the first time they have been asked. Tagovailoa himself said in April 2023 that he and his family weighed their options after he was diagnosed twice with concussions in the 2022 season.

But Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said it’s not his place, nor is it the time, to have discussions about whether Tagovailoa should play again.

“Those types of conversations, when you’re talking about somebody’s career, it probably is only fair that their career should be decided by them,” McDaniel said.

The Dolphins said Friday that they will bring in another quarterback, and for now are entrusting the starting job to Skylar Thompson. McDaniel said the team will not rush to any other judgments, that the only opinions that truly matter right now come from two sides — Tagovailoa and his family, and the medical experts who will monitor his recovery.

“The thing about it is everybody wants to play, and they love this game so much, and they give so much to it that when things like this happen, reality kind of hits a little bit,” Jacksonville coach Doug Pedersen said Friday. “It just shows the human nature, or the human side of our sport.”

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AP Sports Writer Mark Long in Jacksonville, Florida, contributed to this report.

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Canada’s Sarah Mitton captures shot put gold at Diamond League in Brussels

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29 mins ago

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September 13, 2024

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BRUSSELS – Canadian shot putter Sarah Mitton rebounded from a disappointing performance at the Paris Olympics by capturing Diamond League gold on Friday.

Mitton, of Brooklyn, N.S., won the competition, the final Diamond League event of the season, with a heave of 20.25 metres on her third throw.

Chase Jackson of the U.S. placed second with a throw of 19.90, while German’s Yemisi Ogunleye, the Olympic gold medallist, claimed bronze with a toss of 19.72.

Mitton, the runner-up of last year’s world championship, failed to qualify for the top eight in Paris.

Edmonton runner Marco Arop, who won silver for Canada in the men’s 800 metres at the Paris Games, was scheduled to race in the 800 on Saturday.

Olympic bronze-medallist Alysha Newman, of London, Ont., also competes Saturday in the women’s pole vault.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.

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Michigan’s Greg Harden, who advised Tom Brady, Michael Phelps and more, dies at 75

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31 mins ago

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September 13, 2024

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ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Greg Harden, who counseled countless people at the University of Michigan from Tom Brady to Michael Phelps, and Desmond Howard to J.J. McCarthy, has died. He was 75.

Michigan athletics spokesman Dave Ablauf said the family informed the athletic department that Harden died Thursday due to complications from surgery.

The late Bo Schembechler, a College Football Hall of Fame coach, hired Harden in 1986 as a staff consultant and student-athlete personal development program counselor.

“He meant the world to me and I could never have had the success I had without the time, energy, love and support he had given me,” said Brady, a former Michigan quarterback who went on to win seven Super Bowls in a 22-year career.

Howard, who won the Hesiman Trophy in 1991, was part of the first wave of Wolverines to count Harden as a confidant, mentor and friend.

“Greg brought wisdom, joy and his calming nature to every encounter,” Howard said. “His presence will be missed by all of us.

“Although my family and I are heartbroken, we hold on to the lessons, guidance and memories that will forever be Greg’s legacy. We are blessed beyond measure to have had him in our lives.”

Harden, who was from Detroit, earned undergraduate and master’s degrees at Michigan.

Phelps lived and trained in Ann Arbor, Michigan, after emerging as swimming star at the 2004 Athens Olympics, and worked on his mental health with Harden.

Harden retired from his role as director of counseling for Michigan’s athletic department in 2020. He still continued to work, advising student-athletes at Michigan along with the Toronto Maple Leafs as the NHL team’s peak performance coach.

He published his first book, “Stay Sane in an Insane World: How to Control the Controllables and Thrive,” last year.

Michigan athletics announced Harden’s death, and shared statements from some of the many people who knew him.

McCarthy, a Minnesota Vikings rookie quarterback, sent the school his thoughts in the form of a letter to Harden.

“You gave me the courage and belief as we fought hand and hand against the demons that I’ve spent my entire life fighting,” McCarthy wrote. “You have inspired me by your ability to unconditionally love everyone and everything.”

While many famous football players worked with Harden, he also was a trusted adviser for women and men in all sports and walks of life, including broadcaster Michelle McMahon, who played volleyball at Michigan.

“He poured his heart into thousands of students, athletes, and celebrities alike without any expectation of gaining anything in return,” McMahon said. “He dedicated his entire life to making a difference and investing in the growth of the young impressionable minds that were lucky enough to meet him.

“His captivating presence and charisma captured the rooms he walked in. Greg’s gift to the world was his unwavering ability to help people see themselves fully, in full acceptance of their flaws and their gifts. His relentless approach made it impossible for his mentees to give up on themselves.”

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Follow Larry Lage at https://twitter.com/larrylage

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