The B.C.-led quest for a human vaccine against SARS should get a boost today when American experts meet their counterparts at the B.C. Centre for Disease Control to forge collaborations on fast-tracked experiments in animals like ferrets and monkeys.

With record-breaking speed, scientists with the Vancouver-based SARS Accelerated Vaccine Initiative (SAVI) have developed three potential vaccines that have been used in small animal trials.

But U.S. government cooperation is crucial to ramp up the animal experiments -- and that requires U.S.-scale funding and facilities.

The Canadian SAVI vaccine team will meet today with Dr. Tom Voss, director of the leading drug design centre called homeland security and infectious disease research division of Southern Research Institute in Alabama.

Since the 9/11 disaster in New York, Voss' laboratories have been contracted by U.S. government departments on several projects relating to lethal infectious agents, biological threat containment strategies and the labs have also been screening dozens of drug compounds against SARS.

SAVI, funded by the B.C. government, is led by University of B.C. professor Dr. Brett Finlay. Also attending the meeting will be Dr. Lorne Babiuk, director of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization based at the University of Saskatchewan.

Babiuk was instrumental in the development of a vaccine several years ago to prevent shipping fever in cattle, which is caused by a member of the same coronavirus family that causes SARS.

The fact that an animal vaccine exists gives SAVI member Dr. Danuta Skowronski hope that a human vaccine may be within reach.

Skowronski, a physician epidemiologist at BCCDC, said Wednesday that by the end of next month, SAVI scientists will have results of their primate and ferret trials.

"We've got three different vaccines in case one fails. But we are still trying to ascertain which animal model is best for not only testing the vaccine but also in causing infection. Primates are much more precious to work with, so the numbers in the trials so far are small because you don't want to be wasteful. It is always uncomfortable to expose our closest living ancestors, so ferrets have proven to be a good [alternative] model," she said.

Not only are ferrets closely related to civets -- the animals being slaughtered in China this week because they are thought to be harbouring the SARS virus -- but they are an excellent model for study of human influenza viruses. Indeed, Skowronski said ferrets were first used in the 1930s for the development of vaccines against influenza.

Other animals have been less useful for SARS and other vaccine research as they don't always demonstrate symptoms of infection. "You could infect them but that doesn't mean they get sick and so they are not the best model for vaccines to prevent disease," Skowronski said, adding:

"Do monkeys get SARS? In some laboratories, yes, in others, no."

One vaccine developed by SAVI and collaborators uses a killed or inactivated virus that would ideally stimulate an immune response. Another uses a weakened virus and a third utilizes proteins to build immunity against SARS.

If animal research continues at the pace it has, human trials could begin next year.

Dr. Robert Brunham, medical director of BCCDC, said China would be an ideal place to do such trials, not only because SARS appears to be resurfacing there, but also because China can fast-track drug trial approvals.

Skowronski said just because Chinese officials will agree to speedier human trials doesn't mean SAVI has any intention of taking advantage of the situation by exposing the Chinese population to any risk.

"We're still learning about these pathogens in the human context so we're not about to be silly or flippant about this," she said, adding that any trials in China will stand up to the scrutiny of Western scientific experiment ethics.

As to where a successful vaccine candidate would be manufactured, Skowronski concedes there is no suitable facility in Canada, "but I think various people have been in discussions about that and perhaps working towards [building] such a facility."

pfayerman@png.canwest.com