Challenges in the construction of a multi-product vaccine facility

A new multi-product vaccines facility in Sanofi Pasteur was designed and equipped with new state-of-the-art technologies. The construction of this building aims to increase capacity of producing pediatric vaccines and allowed to implement manufacturing process improvements, increase quality compliance level and addressed environmental, and safety concern. This new facility harbors three antigens processes from fermentation to purification and detoxification. The project has been challenging on different points: new equipment, process transfer issues, new qualification/validation strategy and regulatory registration. Apart from global feedbacks on costs, organization, resources, performance and authorities communication strategies, focus was also directed towards the resolution of a process issue during validation steps. A trouble- shooting group has been mobilized to work on the different axes with a specific method. Resolution of all the issues permitted the building registration, and therefore the vaccination of millions of children

Flexoelectric and piezoelectric effects in micro- and nanocellulose films

International audienceIn this work, we evaluated the flexoelectric and piezoelectric contributions to the overall macroscopic polarization in cellulose films. To this end, the flexoelectric /431 and transverse effective piezoelectric e31,f coefficients of cellulose films were determined using cantilever beam bending. The experiments were based on theoretical developments allowing to separate the flexoelectric from the piezoelectric contribution, represented by an effective flexoelectric coefficient, /4eff, depending on both e31,f and /431. Five free-standing and stainless steel/ cellulose bilayer films were prepared from cellulose showing different morphologies and surface charge degrees: two almost neutral cellulose microfibers (CMF) and three (2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxyl (TEMPO)oxidized cellulose micro- (TCMF) and nanofibers (TCNF) bearing negative charged groups on the surface. The dielectric properties of the films indicated a low dielectric constant for unmodified CMF, and a huge increase for TEMPO-oxidized samples, which were up to 9 times higher than poly(vinylidene fluoride)-based polymers. TEMPO-oxidized cellulose films exhibited the largest flexoelectric coefficients (almost 7 times higher than those of synthetic polymer dielectrics), which evidenced that the presence of polar groups and surface charge boosted both flexoelectricity and piezoelectricity in unpoled cellulose films. These findings pave the way towards sustainable cellulose-based curvature sensors with large effective flexoelectric coefficients, without the need of preliminary energy consuming poling step