LOWELL — Scientists at UMass Lowell are researching a process that would freeze-dry messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccines so they can be transported and stored at room temperature.
“Our goal is to develop a freeze-drying process that can be used for mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines to make them more stable and extend their shelf life, as well as make them easier to transport, store and use,” said Seongkyu Yoon, a chemical engineering professor who is leading the project, along with Emily Gong of Physical Sciences Inc. in Andover and researchers at Merck and the University of Connecticut.
Currently, the mRNA vaccines manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech must be refrigerated at below-freezing temperatures until they are ready to be used, which has caused supply chain issues and made it much more difficult to deliver the vaccines to people around the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends storing the Pfizer vaccine between negative 112 and negative 76 degrees Fahrenheit, and the Moderna vaccine between negative 58 and 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Johnson and Johnson vaccine requires conventional refrigeration between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit.
The freeze-drying process, called lyophilization, is being studied at UMass Lowell’s Lyophilization Research Bay, which opened in 2019 in the Mark and Elisia Saab Emerging Technologies and Innovation Center. It is the first facility of its kind on the East Coast.
The process works by freezing a substance, such as the vaccines, then reducing the air pressure and adding low heat to allow the frozen water in the material to change directly from ice to vapor without melting, removing the water. It allows the product to be stored as a powder at room temperature and then reconstituted when it is ready to be used.
“So far, none of the COVID-19 vaccines has been able to be stored at room temperature, which makes our approach unique and very attractive,” Yoon said.
Yoon’s team hopes to use the process to enable a more rapid response to COVID-19 by creating a stockpile of stable, freeze-dried vaccines that can be shipped and distributed even to remote, rural areas without ultracold freezers. They hope to one day use the process for other vaccines as well.
“We will use the (Lyophilization Research Bay) to demonstrate the ability to scale up the freeze-drying process, similar to what large companies do to mass-produce vaccines,” Yoon said.
The study is funded by a one-year, $930,223 grant from the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals, as well as financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology.
UMass Lowell chemical engineering doctoral students Caitlin Morris, of Tewksbury, and Richard Marx, of Cambridge, are also assisting on the project.
“Our research is based on three years of study at the (Lyophilization Research Bay), with support from NIIMBL. As far as I know, this is the first project of its kind funded by a public-private manufacturing institute,” Yoon said.
