UCC joins €7.8m vaccine consortium
Oxford and Cambridge are among the major institutions that UCC has joined in a new vaccine consortium collaborating to develop a vaccine to address the most widespread form of human malaria.
OptiViVax is a new €7.8m international collaboration of nine institutions which aims to optimise a vaccine for Plasmodium vivax malaria. P. vivax is the most widespread human malaria with 2.5 billion people living at risk in Africa, South America, Oceania, and Asia.
Over the next 5 years, the new OptiViVax consortium will build on breakthroughs in malaria research to integrate state-of-the-art advances in parasite immunology, vaccine design, and innovative clinical studies, to develop next-generation vaccines with increased efficacy against the P. vivax parasite.
The aim is to develop needle-free, easy-to-administer vaccine patches.
UCC will be represented in the consortium by groups from the School of Pharmacy and School of Biochemistry & Cell Biology, led by Dr Sonja Vucen and Dr Anne Moore respectively.
Dr Moore, Senior Lecturer in Biochemistry and Cell Biology at UCC, explained: “The decades of global research to develop effective malaria vaccines has finally culminated in the licensing of two malaria vaccines. However, both of these vaccines only target one type of the malaria-causing parasite (P. falciparum).
“Millions of people across the globe are still afflicted by another malaria-causing parasite Plasmodium vivax.
“We urgently need to address this type of malaria. Although we can build on our knowledge gained in developing a P. falciparum vaccines, there are substantial differences between the two types of parasite and there are large gaps in our understanding of P. vivax.
“The OptiVivax consortium is coming together to collectively address these gaps and develop a P. vivax vaccine that protects people against this disease.
“In UCC, we are excited to contribute our expertise in developing needle-free, easy-to-administer vaccine patches, to this international effort,” she added.
“Our inter-disciplinary approach, across Dr Vucen’s group in the School of Pharmacy, and my vaccine group in the School of Biochemistry & Cell Biology is another example of the benefit of collective research across UCC Future Pharmaceuticals cluster,” she said.
Vivax malaria is transmitted rapidly from person to person by mosquitoes and, in contrast to P. falciparum, a single infection can result in repeated disease episodes that are initiated by dormant liver stages of the parasite. Remarkably, vivax relapse is thought to account for the majority of new infections (80-90%).
Vivax is more widespread than falciparum and recent studies show a significant burden of disease, particularly in young children and pregnant women. The revised Malaria Vaccine Technology Roadmap to 2030 recognises the severity of P. vivax malaria, calling for a vaccine intervention to achieve 75% efficacy over two years, equally weighted with P. falciparum.
The OptiViVax consortium brings together academics, non-profits and industrial partners, with expertise in vaccine development, manufacturing and clinical trials. The project will build on the expertise of its partners in P. vivax immuno-biology, preclinical functional assays, vaccine development, controlled human malaria infection (CHMI) clinical models and improved GMP bio-manufacturing know-how, to further develop next-generation vaccines with improved efficacy.
The project is supported by funding from the European Commission, the UK, and Swiss governments.
The OptiViVax consortium kick-off meeting was held on 19 September, hosted by the University of Oxford.