The AHFMR Interdisciplinary Team in Vaccine Design and Implementation
The problem
Certain bacteria in the respiratory tracts of children can lead to diseases such as meningitis, pneumonia, and ear infections. These bacteria are responsible for more than half of the world's deaths in children under five, and cause the most common bacterial infections in children in developed nations. It has proven a challenge to develop effective vaccines against these bacteria, which are very good at avoiding detection by the human immune system.
The team
This team of 11 researchers from seven different disciplines at the University of Calgary, the University of Alberta, the University of Saskatchewan, and the University of Toronto will approach this problem from many different perspectives.
The plan
The team will study how the bacteria evolve within the human population and design vaccine products capable of providing protection against different strains and species. They will use a detailed understanding of the bacteria's basic biology to target essential processes shared by different disease-causing bacteria. At the same time they will improve vaccine evaluation strategies and develop new approaches to predict the impact of vaccines. The team will be organized into three interdisciplinary groups to accomplish these goals: the Vaccine Impact group will study how the bacteria evolve within the human population, use this information to develop mathematical models that estimate the benefit of different vaccine regimens, and also provide information biology to aid in the initial design of the vaccines; the Vaccine Design group will use a combination of strategies to develop vaccine products; and the Vaccine Evaluation group will develop relevant infection models and improved lab methods, and also test the group's new vaccines to make predictions about their impact and further guide the vaccine design efforts.
The outcomes
The team will work with public health agencies to make sure that the new vaccines meet their health care needs and also evaluate the effects of different vaccine formulations.