New vaccine research program gets $5 million boost from AHFMR

By Laurie Wang
Posted January 15, 2008

Dr. Anthony Schryvers: Photo by Trudie Lee Photography, with permission from AHFMR.The Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research (AHFMR) has announced the Faculty of Medicine's new vaccine research program as one of the recipients of AHFMR's first interdisciplinary team grant competition. The team grant program provides up to $5 million per team.

"AHFMR's Interdisciplinary Team Grants program provides opportunities for collaborative teams of researchers from different research disciplines and institutions to address important research questions or health problems," says AHFMR interim president and CEO Dr. Jacques Magnan. "One of the purposes of the program is to catalyze existing provincial strengths in a given area of research into a position of international stature."

"The first of its kind in Canada, it's the first vaccine program to include professionals from a wide range of backgrounds-from basic life scientists to mathematicians and physicists to physicians to health economists and public health researchers," say Anthony Schryvers, PhD-MD, professor in the Departments of Microbiology & Infectious Diseases and Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, associate director of the O'Brien Centre for the Bachelor of Health Sciences, and leader of the program.

"We believe the program will make a global impact," adds Dr. Jim Kellner, professor, Department of Pediatrics, and co-team leader.

With children in Alberta getting approximately 12 vaccinations by the time they're in grade five-that's 19 pokes in total-the program seeks to develop new products and approaches to immunization. The interdisciplinary team will carefully study pathogen distribution within the population, evaluate their ability to change, improve vaccine evaluation strategies and develop new approaches to predict the impact of candidate vaccines while developing new vaccines.

"The vaccines we have now are good, but because bacteria change over time, some vaccines will become ineffective," Schryvers explains.

"Some vaccines we use today are 85 years old," Kellner adds. "Because bugs change, we need to adapt vaccines to fight the changing bugs."

The new vaccine research program will develop and test vaccines directed against several different pathogens, making them easier and cheaper to deliver.

"Every year, 2.5 million children under five years of age die in developing countries from the vaccine-preventable diseases we are targeting," Kellner says.

"If we can find more convenient and less expensive ways to produce vaccines for these infections, Canada can help provide vaccines for nations who can't afford them," Schryvers says.

The program will be organized into three interdependent components:

• Vaccine Impact: This group will study how bacteria evolve within the human population, how they change their antigens and predict how existing and new vaccines will impact on disease over time.
• Vaccine Design: This group will develop products capable of providing protection against different strains and species of pathogens, and be designed for the greatest long term impact on disease.
• Vaccine Evaluation: This group will improve and develop assays and build relevant infection models to evaluate the effect of various vaccine formulations on disease prevention.

"The AHFMR grant creates greater opportunities in the future for us as we connect with other vaccination research initiatives and institutes in the world," Kellner says. "The new vaccine research program will put Alberta on the map as a centre for innovative vaccine development."

About the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary

The U of C's Faculty of Medicine is a national leader in health research with an international reputation for excellence and innovation in health care research, education and delivery. Through its educational programs, the Faculty of Medicine trains the physicians and scientists who will lead the next generation of health practitioners. Through its clinical work, continuing medical education programs, and close relationship with the Calgary Health Region, the Faculty of Medicine moves new treatments and diagnostic techniques from the laboratory bench to the hospital bedside efficiently and effectively, improving patient care.

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