The Human Vaccines Project announced the launch of the Universal Influenza Vaccine Initiative (UIVI), a first-of-its-kind program that will address the underlying scientific barrier impeding the development of broadly protective, universal influenza vaccines: the human immune response.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), influenza is estimated to kill between 250,000 and 500,000 people around the world every year. As the world becomes more interconnected, the risks for a new pandemic continue to increase, carrying the potential for widespread social, economic and political upheaval. A universal vaccine, once developed, would protect everyone regardless of age, gender and geography against all strains of influenza, making significant strides toward preventing a global catastrophe.
"While great progress has been made in understanding the influenza virus, seasonal vaccines are not consistently effective and people remain highly vulnerable," said Wayne C. Koff, PhD, President and CEO of the Human Vaccines Project. "The public health disaster of the 1918 pandemic that infected a third of the world's population and killed over 50 million looms heavy. We are long overdue to solve this very real global health threat."
The Project's influenza vaccine initiative, led by Dr. James Crowe Jr., Director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, and Dr. Clarence B. Creech, Director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., will launch a series of influenza vaccine clinical trials in globally diverse populations beginning early in 2018. Researchers based at the Project's scientific hubs at the University of California San Diego, The Scripps Research Institute, the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology, and the J. Craig Venter Institute, and partners at the University of British Columbia and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will conduct a broad spectrum analysis of blood and tissue samples from vaccinated and infected individuals, coupled with artificial intelligence driven computer simulation models, to decipher the elements of protection against influenza and determine why some people are protected while others are not.