Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. announced the award of a contract from HDT Bio for the purpose of rapid, next-generation vaccine development under a ?Project NextGen: Enabler' award to HDT Bio. The Project seeks to facilitate the rapid production of vaccines during outbreaks/pandemics, focusing on decentralized vaccine manufacturing, with vaccines deemed critical medical countermeasures to infectious disease threats. Under the terms of the contract, Applied DNA will supply Linea?

DNA IVT templates to HDT Bio for use in conjunction with its LION? formulated repRNA (self-replicating RNA) vaccination platform. The goal of the contract is to demonstrate the feasibility of manufacturing 1,000 doses of a functional vaccine within seven days.

The Linea DNA platform is a completely cell-free DNA production platform founded on Applied DNA's long-standing expertise in the large-scale enzymatic production of DNA. Capable of producing DNA in quantities ranging from milligrams to grams, the Linea DNA platform can produce high-fidelity DNA constructs ranging from 100bp to 20kb in size. The DNA produced via the Linea DNA platform is free of the adventitious DNA sequences found in other sources of DNA, is rapidly scalable, and provides for simple chemical modification of DNA constructs.

The Linea IVT platform combines DNA IVT templates manufacturing via the Linea DNA platform with a proprietary Linea? RNAP to enable mRNA and sa-mRNA manufacturers to produce what Applied DNA believes to be better mRNA faster, with advantages over conventional mRNA production, including: 1) the elimination of plasmid DNA as a starting material; 2) the prevention or reduction of double-stranded DNA (dsRNA) contamination; and 3) simplified mRNA production workflows.