Reassortant Virus
Medigen exclusively licensed a reassortant vaccine ML29 technology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore. In the ML29 virus, a non-pathogenic arenavirus was engineered by reassortment to express Lassa virus GPC and NP vaccine genes. The ML29 vaccine virus is capable of propagating and contains >70% of non-pathogenic arenavirus genome, while Lassa virus genes represent <30% of the ML29 genome. Therefore, reversion is not possible and the vaccine safety is assured.
ML29 vaccine is conceptually similar to other live reassortant and vectored vaccines, which contain vaccine genes of interest, while the remaining genes in the vaccine virus are derived from a non-pathogenic virus. This technology is used at Medigen to develop.
