Irvine, Calif., Oct. 3, 2024 — With an initial three-year, $33 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the University of California, Irvine will lead a multi-institutional drive to create new vaccines as part of the Research and Development of Vaccines and Monoclonal Antibodies for Pandemic Preparedness Network (ReVAMPP).

With this ReVAMPP funding, Philip Felgner, director of UC Irvine’s Adeline Yen Mah Vaccine Center, will lead an effort to create vaccines for the pandemic preparedness program. Its mission will be to contribute to human health and well-being by inventing agile, safe, effective and accessible vaccines to protect the vulnerable against future pathogens of pandemic importance and by educating the next generation of vaccine scientists who will tackle such problems.

“By developing vaccines on rapid-response platforms, researchers will be able to address scientific challenges characteristic of those pathogens in advance, providing an important head start on developing vaccines against related threats,” said Felgner, a professor in residence of physiology and biophysics. “We hope to create universal, programmable vaccine platforms that can be rapidly employed ahead of the next outbreak.”

About the new program

The program will be named the Vaccines for Pandemic Preparedness Center. It will conduct basic and translational research to produce prototype vaccines against members of the Bunyavirales, Paramyxoviridae and Picornaviridae virus families that have the potential to emerge as pandemic pathogens. The immune response, efficacy and clinical utility of programmable, adjuvanted recombinant protein vaccines and mRNA lipid nanoparticle vaccines will be tested in animal models and directly compared to each other.

Felgner’s team will conduct project research as part of his Adeline Yen Mah Vaccine Center, which will be located in the Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building.

The approximately 215,000-square-foot Falling Leaves Foundation Medical Innovation Building will be one of the largest in the West and will provide optimal space for core instruction and laboratories to extend advances in medicine and the health sciences. It is set to open in the summer of 2025.

Project membership will include scientists from UC Irvine, the University of Pennsylvania, Georgia State University, Baylor College of Medicine, Virginia Tech and Tulane University. They will direct five projects and three scientific cores.

Industry collaborators are Avanti Polar Lipids, which holds proprietary adjuvant and lipid nanoparticle technology; Polaris Pharmaceuticals, a manufacturer of recombinant proteins; and Merck. They plan to support the preclinical research and, possibly, further vaccine development.

Preparing for the next pandemic

COVID-19 taught us the importance of being better prepared for the next pandemic. Endorsed by government and non-government organizations worldwide, the 100 Days Mission proposes to come up with a coherent response that defuses the threat of another outbreak by providing safe and effective vaccines within 100 days of identifying the emerging pathogen.

Gathering data and experience for prototype vaccines will build confidence in the generalized platforms and inform regulators as they make decisions about the emergency authorization of vaccines against related viruses.

“It’s important that we can rigorously compare both platforms so that we can maximize our options when an outbreak occurs,” said Felgner, who received Spain’s prestigious Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research and the Robert Koch Prize in recognition of his contributions to designing COVID-19 vaccines. 

“A regulatory framework ‘rules of the road’ will be generated and tested. Tools will be developed for serosurveillance, and machine learning will be applied to predict outbreak risk,” he said. “These efforts will provide a collection of shared resources and tools to be made available to the consortium and to the greater ReVAMPP network.”

The project is supported by a National Institutes of Health grant under award number 1U19Al181968-01. UC Irvine will be eligible for another $23 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the end of the initial three-year grant, depending upon project advancement and fund availability.

About UC Irvine’s Brilliant Future campaign: Publicly launched on Oct. 4, 2019, the Brilliant Future campaign aims to raise awareness and support for UC Irvine. By engaging 75,000 alumni and garnering $2 billion in philanthropic investment, UC Irvine seeks to reach new heights of excellence in student success, health and wellness, research and more. The School of Medicine plays a vital role in the success of the campaign. Learn more by visiting https://brilliantfuture.uci.edu/uci-school-of-medicine.

About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UC Irvine is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities and is ranked among the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. The campus has produced five Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UC Irvine has more than 36,000 students and offers 224 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $7 billion annually to the local economy and $8 billion statewide. For more on UC Irvine, visit www.uci.edu.

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