Construction on the new Vaccine Development Centre on the USask campus is now done. Director and CEO of VIDO, Volker Gerdts, explains that the VDC is part of an integrated facility including the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization and Intervac, which is Canada’s largest high containment facility for those pathogens which need a higher level of containment. He says this means they can now go from discovery and testing vaccines to also including the next steps of process development and manufacturing. It can all be done in-house.

Gerdts says the VDC is the first step in establishing VIDO as Canada’s Centre for Pandemic Research, which will also include an expanded scientific team, increasing to containment level 4 capacity from level 3, and a new animal housing facility. The next step is to undergo commissioning to ensure the facility utilities and equipment operate as required. Funding came from the city, the province and the federal government, along with corporate and individual donors.

Dr. Gerdts states that this in-house manufacturing facility is one of only a few centres in the world which are able to make all of the various kinds of vaccines for both human and animal diseases, and it is integrated into Canada’s largest high containment facility, Intervac.

USask President, Peter Stoicheff, says this is not just a story for the university, it’s a Saskatchewan story and a Canadian story. He considers this a major milestone for VIDO and its role as a global leader in addressing COVID-19 and future infectious disease outbreaks. Stoicheff says with facilities like the synchrotron and the VDC, the future of Canada is in Saskatchewan’s hands.