Researchers at The Pirbright Institute in Woking, Surrey have secured almost £1.2 million in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to fund the development of improved foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccines for East Africa.

Three senior Pirbright researchers will work on the project, selecting new vaccine strains using two new tests.

A vaccine’s effectiveness can be influenced by many different factors, such as the route of vaccination, the dose and the quality of antigens in the host (molecules able to induce an immune response). Current vaccines for foot and mouth disease are made from chemically-inactivated whole virus particles; vaccines made from incomplete virus particles don’t allow animals to develop enough antibodies, and they’re less stable, breaking down at room temperature.

To assess the quality of new vaccine candidates, the researchers will use two methods - one looking at the stability of the virus by testing for nucleic acid, and another for detecting antibodies using llama antibodies.

Dr Julian Seago, one of the researchers on the project, who recently won an award at an EU Commission foot and mouth disease conference in Portugal, commented, “In combination, these two techniques complement each other and have the potential to enable the quality control of FMD vaccines, both during and after the production process, as well as helping to determine the most suitable storage conditions for the vaccine.

“Crucially both tests are user-friendly and can be quickly performed with minimal training using standard laboratory equipment. If our project is successful, it has the potential to significantly expedite the production and supply of vaccine and the approach has generated significant interest within the scientific community that studies FMD.”

The project will develop closer links with vaccine companies in East Africa, with the aim of transferring the technology over, which Pirbright will oversee.