ENDFLU- Evaluation of rationally Designed Influenza vaccines
Towards A Next Generation Influenza Vaccine to Protect Citizens Worldwide
Duration of the project: August 2020-July 2025
Funded by: Department of Biotechnology, Government of India.
Influenza is a major health burden, with an estimated 1 billion cases, 3-5 million severe cases and 2.9-6.5 lakh respiratory related deaths around the world annually. Vaccination is the most effective way to combat with circulating strains of Influenza viruses. However, annual vaccination is recommended as the immunity wanes over time. Influenza viruses have pandemic potential especially when new strain of virus emerges. The burden of seasonal influenza, and the threat of emergence of a new influenza pandemic, is a major concern worldwide. To effectively cope with the current situation, one of the priority research should be development of more effective and broadly reactive vaccine. In this context, collaborative efforts from Europe and India have been put forward towards the development of a next generation influenza vaccine.
ENDFLU is an EU-India collaborative project aims in the development of three complementary next-generation influenza vaccination strategies for the world, fueled by the unique combined expertise of Indian and European partners in rational vaccine design and development. Constructs to elicit humoral immunity and cell mediated immune response built on rationally designed and optimised conserved epitopes of influenza antigens either as proteins or expressed as replication-deficient modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) will be developed. The work under the project has been categorized into 12 work packages (WP1 to WP12), each addressing different title, tasks, deliverables and milestones. A total of 14 institutions are part of this project. 7 Institutions from Europe [University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (TiHo), Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), Lund University (LU), Utrecht University (UU), Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München (LMU), École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausane (EPFL), Curve Clinical BV (CR2O)] and 7 institutions from India [Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, IISER –Thiruvananthapuram, Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Seth GS Medical College & KEM Hospital, CSIR-Institute of Microbial Technology (CSIR-IMTECH) and Mynvax Private Limited (Mynvax)].
Manipal Institute of Virology, MAHE is one among the lead beneficiary for work package 2 (WP2) that involves standardization of humoral immune response assays for detection of antibody responses against developed vaccines. Immunological assay package includes standardization of hemagglutination inhibition assay, neuraminidase inhibition assay, virus neutralization and (ELISA-based) micro-neutralization assay targeting HA. ELISA based on the expression of HA/NA ectodomain, ELLA assay, ELISA based on the expression of HA stem and ELISA based on the expression of NA. MIV is also a participant in WP5 and WP7 that involves performing humoral immunological assays on pre-clinical (mice and ferret samples) and clinical samples from ENDFLU partners.
For more details of the project, please follow the link given below: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/874650