Vaccines & Immune Biology

Jonathan Heeney of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom will combine computational design with high-throughput synthetic biology to deliver an effective, universal influenza vaccine candidate for clinical trials in 24 months. Influenza infection impacts public health and the global economy, yet the high mutation rate of the virus has thwarted traditional approaches to develop a broadly effective vaccine.

Jonah Sacha of the Oregon Health & Science University in the U.S. will explore a new approach to vaccine design by using a cytomegalovirus (CMV) vector expressing conserved influenza antigens to induce an effector memory T cell response that persists in the lungs and can provide lifelong immunity against influenza.

Jacob Glanville of Distributed Bio in the U.S. will complete the pre-clinical development of Centivax Flu, a universal vaccine to protect humans and livestock against all forms of seasonal and pandemic influenza, in order to begin first-in-human studies in 2021. Pandemic and seasonal influenza have killed millions of people – the 1918 pandemic alone caused more deaths than World War One – and has led to widespread culling of infected swine and poultry populations. Current vaccines target highly variable regions of seasonal influenza and must be redesigned annually.

Peter Kwong of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the U.S. will use an informatics-based approach to identify influenza virus epitopes that are especially suited to induce a strong and broad immune response, being conserved, accessible, and with a specific structural flexibility, and develop them as vaccine targets. Influenza is highly contagious and can cause severe illness, particularly among the young, elderly, and those with pre-existing conditions.

Alice McHardy of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in Germany will use a computational approach to engineer a more stable, neuraminidase (NA)-like antigen for use in influenza vaccines to increase both the duration and the breadth of protection against multiple influenza strains. Seasonal influenza viruses are constantly mutating, and current vaccines designed to target the variable, but strongly immunogenic, surface antigen, hemagglutinin (HA), must be frequently replaced.

Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the University of Tokyo in Japan will develop broadly effective influenza vaccines by mixing together epitopes of conserved fragments of the viral hemagglutinin (HA) protein, which only elicit a weak immune response, together with millions of different, non-naturally occurring fragments that elicit a strong immune response, to induce broadly cross-reacting antibodies. Influenza is of world-wide concern severely impacting public health and the global economy. Tens of millions of reported cases result in tens of thousands of deaths annually in the U.S.

Rajiv Rimal of George Washington University in the U.S. will increase vaccination uptake in Nepal by improving the state of health centers to make them more enjoyable and practical places for mothers to bring their children and to motivate health workers to provide better care. In Nepal and many other low-resource settings, essential health services such as vaccinations are often provided in settings with long waiting times and limited facilities, which is also demotivating for the staff.

Pamela Schnupf of Paris Descartes University in France will develop an oral vaccine to prevent infectious diarrhea in children by engineering a non-pathogenic bacteria to express pathogen molecules that can be safely delivered in bacterial spores. Diarrheal disease caused largely by Shigella and enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children under five years of age in low-resource settings.

Syrian children refugees are at a high risk to acquire vaccine preventable diseases. Parents lack education and information about vaccination, and tend to miss the follow-up visits vaccination booster for their children. Parents registers the vaccination on the World Health Organization card (known by the Yellow Card), however they tend to lose this card and sometimes children get vaccinated more than once, due to lack of vaccination evidence.

Kenya uses civil registration and vital statistics(CRVS) surveillance without integrating into its citizen’s lives, resulting in low birth registration rates [1, 2]. We introduced a cloud-based electronic medical records system(EMR) to register mothers and infants at maternal and child healthcare(MCH) clinics called WIRE. Our system registered 9274 mothers and infants while recording MCH activities. However, the system does not track infant’s vaccination histories or calculate immunization rates