Human Influenza Vaccine Programme

Programme Leader: Prof Sarah Gilbert

Current vaccines against seasonal or pandemic influenza work by inducing antibodies to highly variable surface proteins of influenza, and have to be reformulated each year to take account of antigenic drift and shift. Information on the viruses to be included in the vaccine is only available a few months before the vaccine is required for use, so that manufacturers have a limited time to produce the vaccine, and if delays in the process occur there are shortages of vaccine for that year.

Aim: A universal flu vaccine

At the Jenner Institute we are working on an entirely different approach to influenza vaccination, based on T cell immunity to the highly conserved internal antigens of influenza. We aim to generate a vaccine suitable for use in all ages, providing protection against currently circulating seasonal influenza as well as avian subtypes that may in future gain the ability to transmit between humans and bring about a new pandemic.

Clinical trials

Clinical trials of Modified Vaccinia virus Ankara expressing conserved influenza antigens began in Oxford in 2008. The first trial assessed safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine at different doses and this has now been published (Berthoud et al., 2011). Following positive results in that study, we went on to conduct an influenza challenge study in which half of the volunteers were vaccinated, half were not, and all were subsequently infected with influenza to test if the vaccine protected them This work is now being prepared for publication.

A new vaccine using a simian adenovirus vector developed in Oxford to express conserved influenza antigens is also being developed and is expected to begin clinical trials in the first half of 2012.

We work closely with Colin Butter and Bryan Charleston at IAH to test the same influenza vaccines in chickens and pigs, see Avian and Swine Flu Vaccine Programme.

Group Members

Prof Sarah Gilbert, Programme Leader
Dr Richard Antrobus, Clinical Research Fellow
Dr Tamara Berthoud, Influenza Immunologist
Dr Amy Boyd, Jenner Fellow
Nick Edwards, Research Assistant
Ekta Lachmandas, DPhil student
Dr Teresa Lambe, Postdoctoral Cellular Immunologist
Caitlin Mullarkey, DPhil student
Rachel Roberts, Malaria & Flu Vaccine Programme Coordinator

Publications

Potent CD81 T-Cell Immunogenicity in Humans
of a Novel Heterosubtypic Influenza A Vaccine, MVA2NP1M1