Publications by Florian Maria Wurm

Dual therapy for amanita phalloides-induced acute liver failure in mice: A combination of etanercept and alpha-1 antitrypsin

Background The toxin α-amanitin from Amanita phalloides induces hepatocyte death and disrupts local and systemic immune responses, key drivers of acute liver failure (ALF). Although TNF-α plays a central role in ALF, TNF-α-targeted therapies alone have sho ...

Elsevier BV2025

An adjuvanted chimeric spike antigen boosts lung-resident memory T-cells and induces pan-sarbecovirus protective immunity

Florian Maria Wurm

Next-generation vaccines are essential to address the evolving nature of SARS-CoV-2 and to protect against emerging pandemic threats from other coronaviruses. These vaccines should elicit broad protection, provide long-lasting immunity and ensure equitable ...

Springer Science and Business Media LLC2025

Alpha1-antitrypsin improves survival in murine abdominal sepsis model by decreasing inflammation and sequestration of free heme

Florian Maria Wurm

Background Excessive inflammation, hemolysis, and accumulation of labile heme play an essential role in the pathophysiology of multi-organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) in sepsis. Alpha1-antitrypsin (AAT), an acute phase protein with heme binding capacity, i ...

Frontiers Media Sa2024

Human PBMCs Form Lipid Droplets in Response to Spike Proteins

Florian Maria Wurm, Guillaume Raussin

Intracellular lipid droplets (LDs) can accumulate in response to inflammation, metabolic stresses, and other physiological/pathological processes. Herein, we investigated whether spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2 induce LDs in human peripheral blood mononuclear ...

MDPI2023

Fluid dynamics of a pilot-scale OrbShake bioreactor under different operating conditions

Florian Maria Wurm

BACKGROUND For several years, orbitally shaken cylindrical bioreactors (OSRs) have become a new approach for propagation of mammalian cells cultivated under suspension. With new commercial cell culture media available today, allowing exceptionally high cel ...

WILEY2022

High-Titer Neutralizing Antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant Induced by Alhydroxyquim-II-Adjuvanted Trimeric Spike Antigens

Florian Maria Wurm

Global control of COVID-19 will require the deployment of vaccines capable of inducing long-term protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2 variants. In this report, we describe an adjuvanted subunit candidate vaccine that affords elevated, sustained, and cros ...

AMER SOC MICROBIOLOGY2022

Affordable SARS-CoV-2 protein vaccines for the pandemic endgame

Florian Maria Wurm

2022

Considerations of the Impacts of Cell-Specific Growth and Production Rate on Clone Selection-A Simulation Study

Florian Maria Wurm

For the manufacturing of complex biopharmaceuticals using bioreactors with cultivated mammalian cells, high product concentration is an important objective. The phenotype of the cells in a reactor plays an important role. Are clonal cell populations showin ...

2021

Boosted Pro-Inflammatory Activity in Human PBMCs by Lipopolysaccharide and SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Is Regulated by alpha-1 Antitrypsin

Florian Maria Wurm, Divor Kiseljak

For the treatment of severe COVID-19, supplementation with human plasma-purified alpha-1 antitrypsin (AAT) to patients is currently considered. AAT inhibits host proteases that facilitate viral entry and possesses broad anti-inflammatory and immunomodulato ...

MDPI2021

Naming CHO cells for bio-manufacturing: Genome plasticity and variant phenotypes of cell populations in bioreactors question the relevance of old names

Florian Maria Wurm

Chinese Hamster Ovary [CHO] cells are the workhorse for production of modern biopharmaceuticals. They are however immortalized cells with a high propensity for genetic change. Judging from published culture records, CHO cell populations have undergone hund ...

2021

Analysis of volumetric mass transfer coefficient (k(L)a) in small- (250 mL) to large-scale (2500 L) orbitally shaken bioreactors

Florian Maria Wurm, David Hacker, Likuan Zhu

In this study, the combination of dimensional analysis (DA) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to predict the volumetric mass transfer coefficient (k(L)a) values under different operating conditions for orbitally shaken bioreactors (OSRs) with diffe ...

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG2020

Trimeric SARS-CoV-2 Spike Proteins Produced from CHO Cells in Bioreactors Are High-Quality Antigens

Florian Maria Wurm

The spike protein of the pandemic human corona virus is essential for its entry into human cells. In fact, most neutralizing antibodies against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are directed against the Virus-surface exposed spi ...

2020

The Delivery of alpha 1-Antitrypsin Therapy Through Transepidermal Route: Worthwhile to Explore

Florian Maria Wurm

Human alpha 1-antitrypsin (AAT) is an abundant acute phase glycoprotein expressing anti-protease and immunomodulatory activities, and is used as a biopharmaceutical to treat patients with inherited AAT deficiency. The pleiotropic properties of AAT provide ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2020

Designs and Characterization of Subunit Ebola GP Vaccine Candidates: Implications for Immunogenicity

Florian Maria Wurm, Divor Kiseljak, Bruno Emanuel Ferreira De Sousa Correia, Sarah Wehrle

The humoral responses of Ebola virus (EBOV) survivors mainly target the surface glycoprotein GP, and anti-GP neutralizing antibodies have been associated with protection against EBOV infection. In order to elicit protective neutralizing antibodies through ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2020

Recombinant Proteins for Industrial versus Pharmaceutical Purposes: A Review of Process and Pricing

Florian Maria Wurm

Recombinant proteins have been produced for over 30 years. Applications range from enzymes used in laundry detergents to antigen-detecting antibodies in cancer therapy. Despite similarities in manufacturing, drastic differences in retail pricing between re ...

2019

Scalable Production of AAV Vectors in Orbitally Shaken HEK293 Cells

Florian Maria Wurm, Nicole Déglon, Bernard Schneider, Vivianne Padrun, Gabriel Vachey, Daniel Roman Blessing

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors are currently among the most commonly applied for in vivo gene therapy approaches. The evaluation of vectors during clinical development requires the production of considerable amounts of highly pure and potent vectors. ...

2019

Sensitivity of the SHiP experiment to Heavy Neutral Leptons

Florian Maria Wurm, Aurelio Bay, Mikhail Chapochnikov, Guido Haefeli, Alexey Boyarsky, Hans Dijkstra, Sun Hee Kim, Oleg Ruchayskiy, Nathalie Sophie Adeline Serra, Lesya Shchutska, Adriano Pastore, Nikolaos Charitonidis, Johannes Richard Cornelis Geerit Kruis, Erica Manfredi, Sargis Hakobyan, Eirini Koukovini Platia, Jean-Loup Tastet, Sergei Smirnov, Anton Petrov, Inar Timiryasov, Maria Elena Stramaglia, Federico Leo Redi, Elena Graverini, Ekaterina Kuznetsova

Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) are hypothetical particles predicted by many extensions of the Standard Model. These particles can, among other things, explain the origin of neutrino masses, generate the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe an ...

Springer Nature2019

Improved process conditions for increasing expression of MHC class II protein from a stable Drosophila S2 cell line

Florian Maria Wurm, Lucia Baldi Unser, David Hacker, Xiao Shen

2018

Design and characterization of near-native Ebola GP vaccine candidates: implications for immunogenicity

Florian Maria Wurm, Giancarlo Corradini, François Gallaire, Bruno Emanuel Ferreira De Sousa Correia, Sarah Wehrle

E M H SWISS MEDICAL PUBLISHERS LTD2018

Fluid dynamics of flow fields in a disposable 600-mL orbitally shaken bioreactor

Florian Maria Wurm, David Hacker, Dominique Terry Monteil Jr, Likuan Zhu

Orbitally shaken bioreactors (OSRs) are commonly used for the cultivation of mammalian cells in suspension. Here we conducted a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to characterize the fluid field in the disposable 600-mL orbital ...

Elsevier2018