PhD thesis introducing new method to analyze potential vaccines

Lars Geurink, Faculty of Pharmacy and Janssen Pharmaceutica

The need for effective tools to develop safe and efficacious vaccines became especially obvious during the corona pandemic. Among the challenges is that today´s methods for testing and analyzing potential vaccines are laborious and often lack sufficient analytical power. This deficiency is likely to consume unnecessary resources and sometimes overturn entire projects.

"In my doctoral project I have studied how Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) – a technique to separate molecules with different charge in a narrow open glass tube – can be utilized for more precise analysis of possible virus vaccines. With a Analytical Quality by Design approach, I have explored, developed and applied a diversity of different CE tests, and in parallel converted newly required knowledge into further sharpening of the tools," states Lars Geurink.

In his thesis, Lars Geurink presents the development of new CE tests with the capacity to determine impurities in a novel influenza vaccine, whether the right polio components are included in a novel polio vaccine, and to determine the amount of adenovirus that are in a specific vaccine. The scientific contribution of Geurink’s thesis can enable cheaper and more efficient CE tests, which in turn could rationalise the development of better and safer vaccines.

Alongside his PhD Student position at Uppsala University, Lars Geurink works with Analytical Development at Janssen Pharmaceutica in the Netherlands. Before being recruited to Janssen, Lars studied life sciences and technology at Universiteit Leiden.