Clinical trials are about to start on a new generation of vaccines for tropical diseases caused by RNA viruses, British researchers have reported.
The new vaccines will target diseases such as Ebola, Marburg and Lassa fever, according to Professor Jonathan Heeney and colleagues at the University of Cambridge, UK.
The project is being backed by a £5 million vaccine fund established by the UK Department of Health and Social Care together with further funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council to develop outbreak prediction systems.
Previously the team developed and successfully tested a trivalent vaccine – consisting of three inactivated influenza viruses – against Ebola, Lassa and Marburg in tests on guinea pigs. This led to funding for further toxicity tests in animals and clinical trials in humans.
The new approach involves creating harmless artificial viruses in vitro to trigger immune responses against key proteins in the target viruses.
Professor Heeney says: "We’ve taken fundamental science that stretches back almost two decades and developed a new approach to vaccine development. This has the potential to dramatically reduce the time needed to produce new vaccines and change the way in which the industry makes them."
If the toxicity tests on animals and human blood samples are successful, trials will begin on healthy humans.
Professor Heeney added: "A disproportionately high number of emerging and re-emerging diseases are caused by RNA viruses carried naturally by animals.
“We know very little about the viral diversity within these reservoir species and what enables them to spread to humans – and hence where the likely future threats lie.
"Equipped with this information, we should be able to design better vaccine antigens for more effective and broadly-protective vaccines."
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