Vaccine maker Adimmune Corp (國光生技) expects to speed up its development of a vaccine for COVID-19 after it signed a letter of intent with the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) on Thursday, enabling it to utilize a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) lab belonging to the NHRI.
Adimmune spokesman Pan Fei (潘飛) told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday that BSL-3 labs are used for clinical, diagnostic or research programs that work on microbes that can cause a serious or potentially lethal disease through inhalation and might contaminate the environment.
Although Adimmune specializes in researching and producing flu vaccines, it has no BSL-3 facility given that flu viruses are less deadly and treatment is already available, Pan said.
“However, as the novel coronavirus is highly contagious and more lethal than the flu, we believe our tests should be conducted in a BSL-3 lab,” Pan said.
The Taichung-based firm has managed to design and produce four prototypes of antigens to fight the virus based on its recombinant protein technology, after it gained the genetic sequence of COVID-19 from the US Centers for Disease Control in early January, Pan said.
“As the genetic sequence we got is for the whole of the virus, we had to analyze the specific genes of the spike protein, a key protein that the coronavirus uses to invade human cells,” he said.
It is important to find the spike protein to develop antigens for the vaccines, as the special protein induces immune responses in humans, he said.
Even though the novel coronavirus’ genetic sequence is similar to that of the SARS and the MERS viruses, their spike proteins all have different shapes and target different human cells, Pan said.
“Now, we have four different prototypes of the antigens and will run tests on them in the NHRI’s advanced lab,” he said.
Adimmune aims to maintain its goal of running an animal test in the second quarter, Pan said.
The company spent about NT$18 million (US$597,530) on developing a vaccine against SARS in 2003 and received a government subsidy of NT$9 million afterward, corporate data showed.
“It is difficult to predict how much would be spent [on developing a vaccine for COVID-19]. The cost would surge if we began human trials. It would mainly depend on how long the epidemic lasts and government policy,” Pan said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to