SCIENCE ESSENTIAL

A world-class biomedical research facility in New Iberia plans for necessary growth

BY SARA BONGIORNI

ON A FORMER NAVY airbase just off the highway in Iberia Parish, on a 118-acre site, more than 10,000 research monkeys cohabitate in the nation’s largest nonhuman primate research center. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s New Iberia Research Center—and its monkeys—stayed quietly under the radar until its involvement in the COVID-19 vaccine pushed the center into the public eye.

in testing the safety and effectiveness of Pfizer’s BioNTech vaccine, the first vaccine authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. There is no overstating the impact of that work. Pfizer’s BioNTech vaccine saved 7 million lives in 2021 alone, according to a 2022 estimate by life-sciences data firm Airfinity.

NIRC was not allowed to discuss the work at the time, but the federal government required research to be peer-reviewed and published before vaccine approval. The center co-published its methods alongside other partners on the vaccine-development team in a February 2021 issue of the journal Nature.

After decades of mostly quiet contract research, NIRC was in the spotlight. And it was eager to talk about its role in development of the vaccine along with additional projects of global importance, including an HIV vaccine funded by a $67 million National Institutes of Health grant.

“Before, we would avoid talking about our work,” says Ramesh Kolluru, ULL vice president for research, innovation and economic development. “That changed with COVID.” for a plant-based vaccine. It belongs to a consortium working on a pan-COVID vaccine to protect against the spectrum of disease variants.

Scientists from across the world partner with NIRC on infectious-disease projects moving toward real-world application. An Oxford University-led project to create an ebola vaccine for wild chimps to prevent its spread to human communities in Africa is now in early trials, for instance. Other work involves metabolic disorders like diabetes and infectious diseases like zika, mosquito-borne dengue fever and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. And humans aren’t the only beneficiaries of its efforts: Phase one trials for a nasal spray to protect dogs against kennel cough are underway.

Original research by the center’s own investigators has expanded sharply in recent years, much of it funded by NIH and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. An ongoing collaboration with Stanford and MIT, for example, uses its extensive PET-imaging technology to track where isotope-illuminated antibodies travel within the bodies of vaccinated rhesus macaques.

“Nobody knows how to influence where

Francois Villinger.

Breakthrough scientific achievement aside, NIRC is a place of mind-boggling daily operations. It spends $3 million a year on monkey chow and employs 200 people, including 20 veterinarians. Its annual toy budget runs between $300,000 and $400,000. Tires for swinging and lounging are favorites among the monkeys housed in roughly 800 domed “corn crib” enclosures in social colonies of about 10. About 1,000 monkeys are born at NIRC each year, mostly rhesus macaques native to northern India and Pakistan that make up a majority of the eight species housed on site. Housing requirements vary by species. Rhesus macaques have stubby tails and hold up well in cold weather, while long-tailed species must be kept indoors in frigid temperatures or risk their tails freezing.

The center also houses about 90 chimpanzees, although NIRC phased out research involving chimps years ago before the federal government declared them endangered and stopped using them for research. A planned move to a north Georgia chimp sanctuary has taken years because the not-for-profit’s site is not fully developed and can’t take the remaining biomedical research, and NIRC has more of them than any other U.S. site. Nevertheless, its monkey population will swell to 15,000 by the end of 2023 in response to a sharp reduction in the number of monkeys China exports to the U.S for research.

A single rhesus macaque can cost $12,000—NIRC has 6,000 of them. It will look to on-site breeding and acquisitions from breeding centers in St. Kitts and elsewhere to reach the 15,000-mark this year.

Meanwhile, it will use $50 million in state funds to position NIRC for more biomedical advances and to stand up what will be a first in Louisiana: an FDA-approved pharmaceutical manufacturing plant specializing in vaccines and other biologics.

NIRC will spend $25 million on a biosafety level 3 facility equipped to handle lethal airborne agents like COVID, flu and tuberculosis. It aims to break ground on new laboratories and new housing for monkeys exposed to aerosolized infectious disease this year.

Its work on Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine highlighted the importance of expanding its ability to handle dangerous viruses that spread through the air. As a biosafety level 2 site, NIRC had to transport immunized rhesus monkeys to Tulane’s biosafety level 3 facilities and similar centers in Texas, Virginia and Georgia to expose them to the live Covid virus.

Kolluru says trucking the animals to and from those sites likely delayed the

FDA’s emergency authorization of the vaccine by two months or more during the pandemic’s first deadly year.

The $25 million for a manufacturing plant about 1.5 mile from the center’s main campus is an effort to diversify Louisiana’s economy by investing in a biopharmaceutical ecosystem. The university is seeking additional private and public partners to build on the state’s investment by another $100 million.

Researchers from institutions like Harvard and Oxford already tap expertise and run experiments at NIRC in developing their drugs but look to places like Boston and San Diego when it comes to manufacturing them.

“We want to provide a place where they can build their drugs,” Kolluru says.

The plant would focus on making biologics, the fastest growing segment of pharmacy manufacturing and one that relies on process-technology skills similar to those in the oil and gas sector. Kolluru’s target is to have the plant operational by 2024.

Kolluru sees advantages beyond economic development. Between 72 percent and 90 percent of active ingredients in U.S. pharmaceuticals are imported from China, leaving the industry—and the public—vulnerable to supply-chain holdups.

“It’s an instance of giving up control of something in our national interest,” Kolluru says. “So this is also a public health imperative, because we don’t want to depend on someone else to produce this.” 