Development of a scalable, high throughput, low energy consuming, rapid vaccine production device

Includes bibliographical references.2022 Fall.Producing vaccines rapidly and efficiently is an incredibly important task. To accomplish this, we are required to develop novel vaccine manufacturing methods and technologies. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the prolonged struggle to mitigate its spread and devastating impacts, an entirely new approach to making an inactivated, whole virus vaccine was pioneered by a team of researchers at Colorado State University's (CSU) Infectious Disease Research Center (IDRC). The novel method employs ultraviolet light and riboflavin (Vitamin B2) to inactivate the virus so that it is suitable for use as a vaccine candidate. The novel method has been coined the "SolaVAX" process, and the efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine produced using the SolaVAX process was proven in an animal challenge study during pre-clinical testing. An existing pathogen reduction technology (PRT) called Mirasol PRT was capable of manufacturing small batches of vaccine material in the laboratory. The Mirasol PRT was developed for inactivating pathogen in blood products. The technology's batch processing design is not suitable for efficiently producing large quantities of vaccine material and meeting the needs for current and future pandemic preparedness. To safely and efficiently inactivate large volumes of pathogen for vaccine production, flow-through processing rather than batch processing is necessary. In a collaborative effort, a team of engineering researchers at CSU's Energy Institute developed a device called the VacciRAPTOR that is estimated to be capable of processing 71 liters of pathogen solution per hour. This processing rate equates to producing over 100,000 human COVID-19 vaccine doses per hour. The VacciRAPTOR uses 18 broadband UV lamps to illuminate and inactivate a flowing solution of whole virus. It has reliably and repeatably inactivated Zika virus during preliminary testing. In addition to using broadband UV lamps for pathogen inactivation, high intensity narrowband UV LEDs were also explored. Both broadband UV emission from lamps and narrowband UV emission from LEDs proved to effectively inactivate whole Zika virion. Since both broadband and narrowband UV light emission from lamps and LEDS effectively inactivated Zika virus during lab testing, a combined Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Technoeconomic Analysis (TEA) was performed to compare the differences in global warming potential (GWP) and economic impact as a result of utilizing UV lamps versus UV LEDs for illumination. The LCA results indicate that using UV lamps is 24x less impactful (5.7 g-CO2-eq per liter of treated virion solution produced) than using UV LEDs (136 g-CO2-eq per liter of treated virion solution produced) when considering use-phase GWP. The TEA results indicate that using UV lamps is 14x less expensive ($6,300) than using UV LEDs ($87,600) when considering overnight capital and lifetime use-phase energy consumption costs. Since the SolaVAX method and VacciRAPTOR technology utilize ultraviolet light and Vitamin B2 rather than hazardous chemicals such as Formalin, this technology can be integrated into production centers without requiring that the center to be capable of handling the toxic and environmentally hazardous materials that are often associated with vaccine production. The device is scalable, compact, and low energy consuming. Scalability, compact design, and chemical-free processing opens the potential to distribute vaccine production capabilities when and where it is needed throughout much of the world

Evaluation of the Illinois Soil Nitrogen Test in the North Central Region

Data from 96 locations across the North Central Region was complied to evaluate the usefulness of the Illinois soil nitrogen test (ISNT) in identifying fields where corn will not respond to additional N fertilizer and predicting the yield optimizing N rate (YONR) for each field. The ISNT could not accurately predict non-responsive sites, nor could it predict YONR. Sub-setting the data based on soil drainage class and previous crop did not improve the predictive capability of the ISNT. The ISNT was related to soil organic matter and was measuring a constant fraction of total soil N. The ISNT is not a meaningful tool upon which N rate decisions should be based

Plant and Environment Interactions Simplified Method for Detecting Tritium Contamination in Plants and Soil

ABSTRACT behave nearly identically in the subsurface and can move in both the liquid and vapor phases (Phillips, penetration of roots and water to a depth of about 1 to desert plant, the approach may be transferable to other species and environments after site-specific experiments. Cos

Global patterns and environmental controls of perchlorate and nitrate co-occurrence in arid and semi-arid environments

Natural perchlorate (ClO4-) is of increasing interest due to its wide-spread occurrence on Earth and Mars, yet little information exists on the relative abundance of ClO4- compared to other major anions, its stability, or long-term variations in production that may impact the observed distributions. Our objectives were to evaluate the occurrence and fate of ClO4- in groundwater and soils/caliche in arid and semi-arid environments (southwestern United States, southern Africa, United Arab Emirates, China, Antarctica, and Chile) and the relationship of ClO4- to the more well-studied atmospherically deposited anions NO3- and Cl- as a means to understand the prevalent processes that affect the accumulation of these species over various time scales. ClO4- is globally distributed in soil and groundwater in arid and semi-arid regions on Earth at concentrations ranging from 10-1 to 106 µg/kg. Generally, the ClO4- concentration in these regions increases with aridity index, but also depends on the duration of arid conditions. In many arid and semi-arid areas, NO3- and ClO4- co-occur at molar ratios (NO3-/ClO4-) that vary between ~104 and 105. We hypothesize that atmospheric deposition ratios are largely preserved in hyper-arid areas that support little or no biological activity (e.g. plants or bacteria), but can be altered in areas with more active biological processes including N2 fixation, N mineralization, nitrification, denitrification, and microbial ClO4- reduction, as indicated in part by NO3- isotope data. In contrast, much larger ranges of Cl-/ClO4- and Cl-/NO3- ratios indicate Cl- varies independently from both ClO4- and NO3-. The general lack of correlation between Cl- and ClO4- or NO3- implies that Cl- is not a good indicator of co-deposition and should be used with care when interpreting oxyanion cycling in arid systems. The Atacama Desert appears to be unique compared to all other terrestrial locations having a NO3-/ClO4- molar ratio ~103. The relative enrichment in ClO4- compared to Cl- or NO3- and unique isotopic composition of Atacama ClO4- may reflect either additional in-situ production mechanism(s) or higher relative atmospheric production rates in that specific region or in the geological past. Elevated concentrations of ClO4- reported on the surface of Mars, and its enrichment with respect to Cl- and NO3-, could reveal important clues regarding the climatic, hydrologic, and potentially biologic evolution of that planet. Given the highly conserved ratio of NO3-/ClO4- in non-biologically active areas on Earth, it may be possible to use alterations of this ratio as a biomarker on Mars and for interpreting major anion cycles and processes on both Mars and Earth, particularly with respect to the less-conserved NO3- pool terrestrially

Global patterns and environmental controls of perchlorate and nitrate co-occurrence in arid and semi-arid environments

Natural perchlorate (ClO4-) is of increasing interest due to its wide-spread occurrence on Earth and Mars, yet little information exists on the relative abundance of ClO4- compared to other major anions, its stability, or long-term variations in production that may impact the observed distributions. Our objectives were to evaluate the occurrence and fate of ClO4- in groundwater and soils/caliche in arid and semi-arid environments (southwestern United States, southern Africa, United Arab Emirates, China, Antarctica, and Chile) and the relationship of ClO4- to the more well-studied atmospherically deposited anions NO3- and Cl- as a means to understand the prevalent processes that affect the accumulation of these species over various time scales. ClO4- is globally distributed in soil and groundwater in arid and semi-arid regions on Earth at concentrations ranging from 10-1 to 106 µg/kg. Generally, the ClO4- concentration in these regions increases with aridity index, but also depends on the duration of arid conditions. In many arid and semi-arid areas, NO3- and ClO4- co-occur at molar ratios (NO3-/ClO4-) that vary between ~104 and 105. We hypothesize that atmospheric deposition ratios are largely preserved in hyper-arid areas that support little or no biological activity (e.g. plants or bacteria), but can be altered in areas with more active biological processes including N2 fixation, N mineralization, nitrification, denitrification, and microbial ClO4- reduction, as indicated in part by NO3- isotope data. In contrast, much larger ranges of Cl-/ClO4- and Cl-/NO3- ratios indicate Cl- varies independently from both ClO4- and NO3-. The general lack of correlation between Cl- and ClO4- or NO3- implies that Cl- is not a good indicator of co-deposition and should be used with care when interpreting oxyanion cycling in arid systems. The Atacama Desert appears to be unique compared to all other terrestrial locations having a NO3-/ClO4- molar ratio ~103. The relative enrichment in ClO4- compared to Cl- or NO3- and unique isotopic composition of Atacama ClO4- may reflect either additional in-situ production mechanism(s) or higher relative atmospheric production rates in that specific region or in the geological past. Elevated concentrations of ClO4- reported on the surface of Mars, and its enrichment with respect to Cl- and NO3-, could reveal important clues regarding the climatic, hydrologic, and potentially biologic evolution of that planet. Given the highly conserved ratio of NO3-/ClO4- in non-biologically active areas on Earth, it may be possible to use alterations of this ratio as a biomarker on Mars and for interpreting major anion cycles and processes on both Mars and Earth, particularly with respect to the less-conserved NO3- pool terrestrially

Does collaboration pay in agricultural supply chain? An empirical approach

This paper examines the effect of different types of collaboration on the level of Postharvest Food Losses (PHFL) and the proportion of low-quality peaches produced using a unique data-set of Greek peach producers. Quantile regression techniques are adopted to estimate the effects at different points of the conditional distribution of our variables of interest. The findings of this study suggest that high levels of collaboration between producers and cooperatives are associated with both low levels of PHFL and a low proportion of low-quality peaches. We also find that specific types of collaboration, such as ‘goal congruence’, can play a significant role in reducing PHFL and improving the quality of peach production at the extremes of the distribution. Important policy implications regarding collaborative practices and systems that can be implemented to reduce PHFL and boost a producer’s performance together with sustainability credentials are drawn from this study