US agency selects UQ for ‘one of the world’s most ambitious biomanufacturing programs'

A United States Government agency has selected University of Queensland researchers to develop technology for personalized RNA medicines to be produced in hospitals, allowing lifesaving treatments to reach patients within days.

UQ’s BASE mRNA Facility is part of a consortium of companies, universities and research institutes with potential to receive up to $57 million ($US40 million) funding under the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an operational division within the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The program’s aim is to build a nationwide network of US hospitals where personalized RNA medicines can be produced on demand, so patients can receive treatment within a week of diagnosis.

BASE facility director Professor Tim Mercer said RNA medicines could be designed for individual patients, from personalized cancer vaccines to treatments for rare genetic diseases.

“The same mRNA technology used in the COVID-19 vaccines is now increasingly being applied to cancer and other diseases,” Professor Mercer said.

Today these medicines are made in a handful of large, specialized factories, and it can take months for a patient to receive their treatment. This program is about bringing production to the patient’s bedside, delivering RNA medicines within days of diagnosis, instead of months.”

Tim Mercer, Professor, University of Queensland

BASE, a part of UQ’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, will be leading the consortium’s development of technology that analyzes the accuracy and safety of each RNA medicine before it reaches a patient, a critical process known as quality control.

“This is Australian-designed technology at the center of one of the most ambitious bio manufacturing programs in the world,” Professor Mercer said.

“Our aim is to speed up how quickly these medicines can be produced and checked, so more patients can access them, wherever they are. We are building an automated system that can test each medicine and confirm it is ready for a patient within days.”

At the heart of the system is nanopore sequencing, a technique that reads individual RNA molecules to help verify the quality, integrity, and safety of the final product.

“It’s an approach we have developed and proven at BASE, and it means one test can do what used to require many different tests,” he said.

Professor Mercer said a system prototype will initially be designed and built at BASE’s laboratories where it will be able support the development of personalized mRNA medicines here in Australia.

Once working, the system will then be assembled at Houston Methodist Research Institute in Texas, one of the largest health networks in the US, and installed to test RNA medicines.

“Being selected by the US Government to lead this work is a recognition of the expertise we’ve built at BASE, and of Australia’s growing capability in mRNA,” Professor Mercer said.