Facilities

The Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) has been a world leader in infectious disease research and vaccine development for almost five decades. We expedite new technology development to ensure humans and animals are protected from infectious diseases.

VIDO has some of the most advanced research and development capacity in the world with a combination of containment level 2 to 3-Ag. We are increasing our capabilities and capacity to include both containment level 4 and expanded animal housing as we become Canada’s Centre for Pandemic Research. 

Our facilities include:

woman in white coat wearing blue gloves working at a lab bench

Containment Level 2/Biosafety Level 2:

  • 25 research laboratories

  • 24 animal isolation rooms

  • Surgical suites

  • 160-acre (65 hectare) research station for large animal studies

woman in PPE hood with clear mask looking at camera

Containment Level 3/Biosafety Level 3:

  • 7 research laboratories

  • Clinical pathology including tissue processing, and automated histology and hematology suites

  • 18 animal isolation rooms that can house all animal species with expanded animal housing facilities to come

  • Necropsy and surgical suites

Routine support for CL2/CL3 labs includes:
  • Required clothing for use inside biocontainment area
  • Required personal protective equipment (PPE)
  • Use of common biocontainment areas such as showers and lockers
  • Waste management services including sharps disposal and autoclave waste disposal
  • Chemical disinfectants for routine decontamination
  • Chemical disinfection and sterilization utilizing VHP
person in PPE including white hood and suit, blue mask, safety glasses and pink gloves works on machine with tubes

Vaccine Development Centre:

  • Containment level 3 capable for Risk Group 3 pathogens

  • GMP compliant

  • Up to 1000L bioreactors and 500m2 fixed-bed bioreactor

  • Capacity to produce inactivated, live attenuated, subunit, viral vectored, mRNA, and DNA vaccines, GMP virus and phage, and other biologics

  • Support for process development—expertise to take new products from the bench-top to full scale manufacturing

  • Capable of manufacturing commercial veterinary vaccines and human vaccines for Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials