Vector & Virus Production Platform

Our mission

The Vector and Virus Production Platform (VVPP) is a technological facility of the Department of Health Science and Technology (D-HEST) at ETH Zurich. The mission of the VVPP is to provide an academic service for cloning and virus production to support basic and preclinical research at a considerably lower price than competitors.

With the completion of the human genome project, genetic approaches are nowadays even more indispensable gears to dissect the molecular mechanisms of physiological signaling pathways and diseases. In this regard, recombinant viruses are the gold-standard genetic tools to shuttle inside the cells the genetic material of interest to modulate and edit its genome.

As part of the Translational Nutrition Biology Laboratory of the D-HEST at ETH Zurich, the VVPP constantly creates viral vectors and produce all types of recombinant viruses (retroviruses, lentiviruses adenoviruses, adeno-associated viruses (AAV)) as invaluable genetic tools to study physio-pathological molecular mechanisms at both basic and preclinical level by manipulating the quality and quantity of gene expression. The use of viruses in preclinical studies is of human translational value from a medical standpoint. AAV are in fact nowadays used to treat solid tumors and eye diseases, lentiviruses have clinical applications in different forms of leukemia, adenoviruses are created to make vaccines and retroviruses find applications for gene therapy in the central nervous system or to modify T cells to treat some form of cancer (CAR-T therapy). Furthermore, lentiviruses and retroviruses are used for cell reprogramming in the field of cell therapy.