Prof., one of the researchers of Izmir Biomedicine and Genome Center (İBG). Dr. In his statement in Kayseri, where he came to attend the 5th International Congress of Vaccinology, İhsan Gürsel said that KORTUP is committed to raising new young people by creating an ecosystem of scientists interested in vaccines in various universities and the Learn the basics of vaccinology and the development of innovative vaccine technologies.
Gürsel explained that their goal is to develop model vaccines against bacterial, viral and parasitic pathogens: “If there are successful ones of these vaccines, we want to transfer the technology to them so that we can produce them in a good laboratory environment “It is a 4-year project involving 9 universities and with 80 vaccines available.” he said.
Gürsel said they initially tested two vaccines to move into animal testing for new vaccines, and they plan to use these in longer-term preclinical tests and prepare them for industry.
Recalling that Turkey's vaccination history goes back a long way, Gürsel continued as follows:
“There has been a vaccination tradition in Turkey since the middle of the 19th century. During the Republic period we increased this to 21 vaccinations with the Hygiene Institute, but in the following years it fell behind due to economic problems and for various reasons. This is so.” “Very critical, very important for a country to develop and use its own vaccine and produce the vaccines in its vaccination programs.” Strategic. We are teams that believe in it. There are other teams than ours that are preparing for this in Turkey. and their work is also very valuable. The goal of KORTUP is to spread the disease even more throughout the country in order to prevent a new epidemic that is permanent and can effectively prepare new vaccines with the researchers we have trained whose knowledge we have expanded and bring them to the country and to make available to the nations.”
Studies on meningitis vaccination
Gürsel explained that one of the vaccines KORTUP is working on is the meningitis vaccine:
“We have had previous studies on meningitis as well as studies on Leishmania (oriental boil) and Covid-19. Two different commercial vaccines against meningitis are used in Türkiye. You have to use both together, even though they are not approved.” As part of the vaccination program, many families receive newborns, but it is very expensive. Our intention is to develop a vaccine that contains two antigens that we call “bivalent” by assimilating them into one vaccine. We have determined with Prof. Mayda Gürsel how comprehensive this vaccine is. By preparing vaccines that will be attached to a universal scaffold within the KORTUP project, we have the opportunity to prepare many vaccines and even vaccines against these new pathogens, as long as we know the genomic information against new threats, we began to forget, that the tradition began to disappear. One of KORTUP's goals is to revive and spread this tradition across the country. “We want to be able to develop our own vaccines, superior vaccines with our own technology.”
Two vaccination projects for intensive care patients and the poultry industry
Director of Selçuk University Vaccine Development Application and Research Center, Prof. Dr. Osman Erganiş stated that during the Covid-19 period, when the opinion that “vaccines cannot be produced in Turkey” prevailed in bureaucracy and science, Turkish scientists could create and produce vaccines by using private sector opportunities, and this was also implemented in different phases of clinical research (Phase 1 – Phase) in different universities, especially in TURKOVAC 2) He said that he showed it to the world with the vaccines that arrived.
Erganiş stated that very good vaccination teams were formed during the epidemic process, that they aimed to prevent the disintegration of these teams with KORTUP, and that they continued their vaccination studies by adding new young people to the team.
Stating that vaccine-related projects can participate in KORTUP with the support of TÜBİTAK, Erganiş stated that TÜBİTAK's 1004 Center of Excellence projects have both continuity and support.
Explaining that they have two projects within the framework of KORTUP, Erganiş said, “We are the leader in one of them. We are preparing a Klebsiella (bacterial vaccine) for humans. This study was in line with the recommendation of infectious disease experts.” We had preliminary studies on this, we had recombinant vaccine projects. Most intensive care patients suffer from infections that are resistant to simple antibiotics.” “We started with such a vaccine because it died,” he said.
Erganiş stated that they worked as researchers on the H9N2 influenza vaccine for chickens and that this virus caused huge economic losses in the egg poultry industry.
This project was led by Dr. IBG performed. Stating that it will be carried out by faculty member Zeynep Koçer, Erganiş said, “The project involves Prof. Dr. Hakan Akbulut and his team from Ankara University also worked on the adenovirus-based H9N2 vaccine. We will carry out the effectiveness tests in field applications at Selçuk University under the leadership of Zeynep Koçer. We will carry out the effectiveness tests for this disease in chickens.” “If we stop it, some diseases will decrease and the poultry industry will not suffer any damage.” “Very important at a time when food security is so high,” he said.
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