Cold chain technology is required to keep vaccines viable during transport and storage. The need to maintain constant storage at 2° C to 8° C poses a significant barrier to inoculation efficacy in remote and resource-limited regions that lack the requisite infrastructure. An alternative is a preservation method engineered at McMaster University, Canada, to store fragile vaccines for weeks at a time at temperatures up to 40° C.The active ingredients in existing vaccines are encased in a sugary gel in a process that adds only marginal cost to vaccine formulation. Source: McMaster University

The active ingredients in existing vaccines are encased in a sugary gel in a process that adds only marginal cost to vaccine formulation and eliminates almost all transportation costs, which can account for 80% of the total cost of inoculation. The active components are combined with pullulan and trehalose sugars in single-dose wells; the vaccines are reconstituted when needed with water.

Two preserved vaccines were tested with mice, demonstrating that a herpes simplex virus vaccine stored in the sugary gel retained its immunogenicity for at least three months of storage at 40° C and an influenza A virus vaccine retained its efficacy for at least two months of storage at 40° C. The materials in the storage medium, described in Scientific Reports, are already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, simplifying the path to commercialization.