BACULOGENES - Baculovirus vectors for gene therapy (FP6-LIFESCIHEALTH) (2007-01-01 - 2009-12-31) (»add to infobox)

Olli LAITINEN, Monique Maria VAN OERS, Kari AIRENNE, Otto MERTEN, N. N. ALTONABIOTEC AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT, Norman James MAITLAND, Paula ALVES, Maud SEGUY

ARK THERAPEUTICS LTD (UKI11 - Inner London - West) (Great Britain), WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITEIT (NL221 - Veluwe) (Netherlands), KUOPION YLIOPISTO (FI132 - Pohjois-Savo) (Finland), GENETHON (FR104 - Essonne) (France), ALTONABIOTEC AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT (DE600 - Hamburg) (Germany), UNIVERSITY OF YORK (UKE21 - York) (Great Britain), INSTITUTO DE BIOLOGIA EXPERIMENTAL E TECNOLOGICA (PT171 - Grande Lisboa) (Portugal), ACIES SAS (FR716 - Rhône) (France)

Baculovirus (BV) Autographa californica multicapsid nuclear polyhedrosis virus is a promising new vector for gene therapy: it is inherently safe and can deliver large pieces of DNA to mammalian cells; its own genes are not transcripted in mammalian cells, and it is not known to be associated with any human disease. BV technology has been used for years for producing recombinant proteins, and thus large scale production technology is readily adaptable for the exploitation of gene therapy approaches. Also BV vectors can be used efficiently for producing other gene therapy vectors such as adeno-associated vectors. BV genome is well-known and we have developed several selective targeting approaches engineered into the virus envelope and capsid. The BACULOGENES project aims to develop clinically suitable methods for the development, production, testing and validation of 2nd generation stabilised and selective BV vectors for the use in direct gene therapy applica! tions. Target diseases for direct in vivo gene delivery with selectively targeted BV will include muscle disorders, age-related macular degeneration and prostate cancer. The BACULOGENES consortium consists of 8 partners from 6 countries, including pioneers in the use of BVs for mammalian gene transfer applications and 2 major established gene therapy vector producing companies in EU. The consortium will devote its efforts not only to BV gene therapy applications, but also to the development of large scale production, downstream processing, purification, analysis methods. The quality control and validation assays, and all issues related to regulatory aspects required for the clinical exploitation of BV technology will be covered. The BACULOGENES project will strengthen the European leadership, knowledge and competitiveness in BV technology through the delivery of novel and validated efficient vectors and platform technology for the exploitation of potential clinical applications of gene therapy.

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