Chinanews.com, Lanzhou, May 26 (Gao Kangdi) "I made the selection of cells, purification of antigens, and equipment production one by one." Liu Xuerong, deputy general manager of Zhongnong Weite Biotechnology Co., Ltd., uses countless laboratories The boring days have broken the traditional view that "cells can only be imported, and bioreactors can only be imported", and the entire process of independent research and development of "animal vaccines" has been realized.
Foot-and-mouth disease is an acute, febrile, and highly contagious infectious disease that is common to major domestic animals such as pigs, cattle, and sheep and other domestic and wild cloven-hoofed animals. There are more than 70 susceptible animals.
The disease spreads in many ways and fast, and it has repeatedly spread worldwide, causing huge political and economic losses.
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) lists it as the first category A infectious disease.
The picture shows the "Animal Vaccine" production equipment independently developed by Zhongnong Weite Company.
Photo courtesy of the interviewee
"The background of imported cells is not clear, the imported equipment is expensive, and it takes a long time to wait." Problems such as these have brought great problems to vaccine production. Liu Xuerong planted seeds in his heart and determined to do his best to research and develop from the source.
From that day on, he moved his "home" to the laboratory.
"The domestication of cell seeds is first of all cell process exploration." In order to domesticate the cells, he led the team to soak in the laboratory for more than 12 hours a day. Sometimes in order to observe the cells, he would lie on the microscope every day, which would last for half a day.
After numerous failures and experiments, finally in 2009, Liu Xuerong led the team to domesticate the "suspension culture cell seed", all parameters reached the standard, and completely got rid of the constraints of foreign "suspension technology".
Liu Xuerong was too late to enjoy the "joy of the stage" and led the R&D team to devote himself to the equipment production design work. "Involving bioengineering knowledge, there are no domestic reference examples and no foreign parameters, so I can only explore and think about it every day."
Liu Xuerong recalled that the company had no bioreactors at the earliest, only simple storage tanks, without cell culture conditions. At that time, cell culture could only be manual, including key conditions and parameters such as melting oxygen, pH, and alkali, which needed to be kept at all times. With manual adjustment, the cells grow up one by one, "large-scale suspension culture may not be as difficult as others have said."
He began to try to design bioreactors. "At that time, the bioreactors in the production line were all designed and I was about to start processing the next day. But that night, I dreamed that the valves of the equipment were installed in a wrong way and all the cells died."
Liu Xuerong, who was awakened in the middle of the night, checked the valve installation method in the design drawings.
With the continuous improvement of vaccine quality standards, the purification of foot-and-mouth disease vaccines has become a difficult problem restricting the development of this industry. "Purification" is the key to improving the quality of vaccines. After every attempt, it still failed.
At that time, Liu Xuerong, who was full of confidence, was deeply hit. One factor was eliminated, and the cause was found out only three months later. A year later, he completely mastered the "antigen purification technology."
Liu Xuerong, who has passed three hurdles in five years, realized his original desire to "establish a technology system for the production of foot-and-mouth disease" by summing up his failure experience and persistence time and time again.
In 2013, the country was fully self-sufficient from raw materials to technology to equipment.
At present, Zhongnong Wittur has two internationally advanced GMP workshops for foot-and-mouth disease vaccines, two production lines with first-class equipment and technology, and has independent intellectual property rights of large-scale full suspension culture of cell viruses and antigen concentration and purification production processes, and undertakes 30% of domestic foot and mouth disease. Vaccine production.
Liu Xuerong said that in the future, the R&D team will further improve R&D efficiency, reduce vaccine costs, and "escort" the safety of animal growth.
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