New labs boost vaccine research
06 Feb 09
Vaccine research and development will get a boost from the opening of the new Jenner Institute Laboratories at the University of Oxford. The building will house researchers working on vaccines against some of the most important diseases worldwide, such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, and bird ‘flu.
The £5m facilities at the Old Road Campus Research Building were opened yesterday by Dr Tadataka Yamada, President of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Global Health Programme.
The event was attended by representatives of government, funding agencies and many public and private sector vaccine developers, and marked the completion of a £20m investment in facilities for vaccinology at the Old Road and Churchill Hospital site since the opening of the Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine in 2003.
The new Laboratories were constructed with support from the Jenner Vaccine Foundation, the MRC, the Wellcome Trust and the Wolfson Foundation.
The Jenner Institute is a partnership between Oxford University, where research focuses on human vaccines, and the UK Institute for Animal Health (IAH), which develops vaccines for animal and livestock diseases. It is one of the largest non-profit entities engaged in vaccine research and development globally. The Institute brings together scientists working in basic sciences, such as immunology, genetics and pathogen biology, with those involved in the clinical development of vaccines to the point where they are ready to be commercialised.
Professor Adrian Hill, Director of the Jenner Institute...we are well placed to tackle the challenge of developing vaccines against some of the world’s most devastating infectious diseases.
‘The new state-of-the-art laboratories will support world-leading vaccine research and development at the University of Oxford,’ says Professor Adrian Hill, Director of the Jenner Institute. ‘With the concentration of researchers we have here, coupled with these excellent new facilities, we are well placed to tackle the challenge of developing vaccines against some of the world’s most devastating infectious diseases.’
Vaccination is one of the most successful and cost effective public health interventions. Research at Oxford has lead to vaccine candidates that are in clinical development for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV. A novel approach to combat influenza could lead to a ‘universal’ vaccine that protects against all strains of ‘flu, including bird ‘flu. Work on meningitis has facilitated the successful introduction of a vaccine programme against meningitis C, with 2007 marking the first year that no one in the UK has died from this strain of the disease.
‘Immunology and vaccine research is one of Oxford’s great strengths,’ says Professor Alastair Buchan, Head of the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford. ‘I am delighted that these new laboratories are now complete. They highlight the leading role vaccine development plays in the division’s strategy to enable the translation of excellent basic research into life-saving medicines.’