Distant from large cities, major medical centers and biomedical research hubs, College Station seems an unlikely candidate to transform into a vaccine mecca.

That may be just what is happening as a pair of new 150,000-square-foot facilities rise above the Brazos Valley flatlands, devoted to new, faster ways to make vaccines for everything from emerging diseases to cancer.

Largely the plan of Dr. Brett Giroir, the focus on vaccines could help Texas A&M University land a $1 billion-plus federal contract in the next few months to accelerate the way vaccines are made.

“As we saw during the H1N1 crisis, there's a huge problem with the way we manufacture vaccines,” said Giroir, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives for the A&M University System.

The problem is that the current process of making vaccines, typically grown in fertilized chicken eggs, is slow and cumbersome.

It took about eight months to make the H1N1 vaccine after the initial swine flu outbreak in 2009, by which time tens of millions of Americans already had been infected and experienced mild symptoms.

More for you News A&M may be on its way to being a vaccine powerhouse

“I don't want to minimize this because thousands of people lose their lives, but it was a blessing because there could have been millions of lives lost,” Giroir said. “And it reinforced the need for our country to be prepared for this.”

The H1N1 outbreak prompted the federal government to speed up the vaccine-manufacturing process.

“We are launching a new initiative that will give us the capacity to respond faster and more effectively to bioterrorism or infectious disease,” President Barack Obama said in his 2010 State of the Union address.

That initiative led to a federal request for proposals to create two Centers of Innovation in Advanced Development and Manufacturing, each of which would have the capacity to deliver 50 million doses of vaccine in four months.

A&M has put together a strong bid for one of these two centers, which have an initial value of about $1 billion, plus ongoing contracts. For its bid, A&M has both a valuable industrial partner, GlaxoSmithKline, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, and brand-new facilities.

The centerpiece of the bid is the just-completed National Center for Therapeutics Manufacturing (NCTM), a massive facility that is part classrooms and part warehouse.

The $60 million building, largely funded by a $50 million grant from Gov. Rick Perry's Texas Emerging Technology Fund, will provide educational opportunities for students, as well as modular space for developing, testing and manufacturing vaccines and other drugs.

College Station may not be known for biotechnology, but the new facility fills a niche in the state economy, Giroir said.

Other state institutions, primarily affiliated with the University of Texas System, excel at basic research and clinical trials.

In between, however, there is a scarcity of resources and space for taking lab breakthroughs, conducting animal tests and making large, quality-controlled batches of new medicines for clinical trials.

A&M's veterinary school and engineering expertise will help ease and speed this “translational” phase of medicine development, Giroir said.

The concept already has attracted interest, with UT's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center reserving one-sixth of the drug-manufacturing space in the NCTM for 10 years.

Another facet of A&M's bid to become a federal vaccine center is the other large, new facility near the university's campus, Caliber Biotherapeutics.

Funded with a $40 million grant from the U.S. Defense Department, plus $25 million in private, local and state funds, the company is developing a new way to make vaccines inside a tobacco-like plant.

Although it only broke ground on its manufacturing plant in April 2010, Caliber already is producing test vaccines. The vaccines are grown inside plants, more than 2.2 million of them now stacked several stories high in compact, hydroponic trays. They are continuously bathed in a purple LED light — 75 percent red, 25 percent blue — that is optimal for photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert light into energy.

To make vaccines, the plants are injected with genes that express the proteins scientists need to grow. Once grown in the cells, the plants are harvested, chopped up and desired proteins purified out.

“Plants offer the quickest and cheapest way to make vaccines,” said Barry Holtz, the company's chief scientific officer.

Giroir believes these components make A&M's bid for a national vaccine center a formidable one, and a federal decision should come in early 2012.

Nevertheless, he acknowledges there are concerns.

There's Perry, a Texas A&M alumnus, who is running for president and regularly bad-mouthing Obama, whose Health and Human Services Department will award the grant.

And there is the fact that College Station and A&M do not have a long-running association with biotechnology. A&M, however, seems to be doing a good job of making up for lost time.

During a recent tour of the new manufacturing facility, in which vaccines for the annual flu vaccine or a pandemic may one day be made, Giroir stopped to look through a window at the scrubland outside.

“A year ago that was here, too,” he said. “But now look at us. Whereas most of the other centers offering bids are really at the Powerpoint stage, we're ready to go.”