研究テーマ

• Understanding factors controlling influenza reassortment
• Influenza vaccines

キーワード

• Influenza virus
• Gene reassortment
• Novel influenza vaccines
• Vaccine adjuvants

研究概要

• Factors that influence the creation of new and potentially pandemic influenza viruses by reassortment between viral strains from animal reservoirs with those adapted for replication and transmission in humans are only recently becoming understood at the genetic level. The reassortment process will be investigated with a view to determining the likelihood of influenza strains with pandemic potential arising from viruses circulating in avian and other species collected for the virus library. Such analyses will also be used to inform the preparation of vaccine virus candidates, which are also produced by reassortment of the newly emerging virus with a virus adapted for growth in an amplifying host such as eggs.
• Current influenza vaccines induce antibodies to the viral surface protein, the hemagglutinin, that inhibit the ability of the virus to enter and thus infect cells. These antibodies are highly effective against the virus strain that was used in the vaccine but if this was not a good match with the strain that actually emerges the vaccine-induced immunity can be less effective. Different types of vaccine that have the potential to induce other types of immunity that can cross-react with different strains of influenza virus will therefore be investigated. These studies include the whole virus particle vaccine.
• Adjuvants are sometimes a necessary addition to vaccines to trigger innate immune responses that are a necessary first step to achieve robust antibody and T cell responses. Suitable vaccine adjuvants will be examined, especially those that trigger the Toll-like receptor family of molecules, for inclusion in vaccines against influenza and other respiratory pathogens.