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Into the guys’ lab “Our sleepless nights to save the world”
Vaccine rush
Into the guys’ lab “Our sleepless nights to save the world”
20 Italian and foreign researchers are working in Pomezia: “We will be ready for testing within two months”
Pomezia (Rome) – maybe these smiling and graduated guys are going to really save the world. We have met them in the same lab they work 12 hours every day. Daniela, 35 years old, a degree in Cellular Biology at Tor Vergata University. When her little daughter reproaches her for staying too long away from home, she tells her an amazing story. Since an evil monster in the shape of a ball with red stings wants us to stay home, her mom has to produce a magic drug making the monster run away. Saran Vittoria Keita, 27 years old, is Italian but native to Mali. She lives with her parents and her mom keeps asking her the same question; Saran keeps replying: “We are shortening the times as much as we can”. IRBM, located in Pomezia (Rome), has to achieve such an ambitious outcome. Again, since it already produced a vaccine for Ebola.
Francesco Calvaruso, 47 years old, the oldest of the Advent team (Advent is the GMP Certified Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization of IRBM Group), confesses us: “I don’t know what is going on, I wake up at the same time every night, and I start wondering how to manufacture the vaccine as soon as possible”.
Even if other companies are participating to the same “contest”, IRBM has an advantage, as its managing director, Matteo Liguori, explains: “We are using a safe version of an adenovirus as carrier of the Spike protein’s DNA […]. Furthermore, we are partner of the Jenner Institute of Oxford University, expert in coronavirus”.
Article by Fabio Tonacci published on la Repubblica – 25/03/2020
