Professor Helen McShane

Director of the Oxford NIHR Biomedical Research Centre; Professor of Vaccinology at Oxford University; Deputy Head (Translation and Personnel), Medical Sciences Division; and an Honorary Consultant Physician in Infectious Diseases

About

Professor Helen McShane researches new vaccines for tuberculosis. One of the areas her group is currently studying is whether delivering a TB vaccine via the aerosol route (through nebulisation directly into the lungs) is a more effective method of vaccination. In the last few years they have started clinical trials investigating aerosol delivery of the vaccine candidate MVA85A and have shown this route to be both safe and immunogenic. Other current projects include the development of a BCG challenge model in humans, evaluating the effect of helminth infection on vaccine induced immune responses, and the evaluation of the protective efficacy of new antigens in viral vectors.