Vaccines

The WHO’s World Statistics Report for 2015 shows that more than a quarter of infant deaths are from infectious diseases, and although adult deaths from infectious diseases in the global population are decreasing, they still outrank non-communicable diseases in many poorer nations.

The threat of pandemics and mortality from endemic diseases will continue to pose great challenges for vaccine research and development in coming decades.

The programme aims to design and develop new vaccines against infectious diseases of global health importance, focusing on six key targets: hepatitis, pandemic influenza, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and meningitis.

The Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines brings together Oxford’s diverse range of vaccines research. The collaboration provides a spectrum of expertise unparalleled elsewhere in academia and it enables researchers to move between groups, sharing valuable new perspectives and insights.

Members of the Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines were part of the collaboration that developed a new vaccine, Bexsero, to protect against meningitis B. The vaccine is due to become part of the UK’s childhood immunisation scheme in 2015.

Work to stabilise a key component in vaccines against meningococcal disease, enabling them to be stored for months rather than days, has been taken up by Novartis.

Clinical trials are underway into vaccines designed to induce immunity against all types of influenza.

Researchers have developed a new attenuated respiratory virus that could be used as a carrier for vaccines against influenza, dengue and hepatitis C virus.

Novel, needle-free, vaccine delivery routes have been developed by the team and are now at patent application stage.