ImmunoServ awarded iiCON funding to assess avian flu immunity
18 November 2024
ImmunoServ are delighted to be receiving a share of £1.5 million from the Infection Innovation Consortium (iiCON), a UKRI-funded initiative dedicated to tackling infectious diseases. After successful sandpit events in Liverpool and London earlier this year, iiCON announced 11 new projects during World AMR Awareness Week. These projects are focused on combating infectious diseases as part of UKRI’s ongoing work to support innovative ways of tackling infections.
ImmunoServ’s project focuses on avian influenza, which poses a significant pandemic threat to the human population. Recent reports of H5N1 spread amongst cattle herds in the US have increased concerns that viral mutations may facilitate animal-to-human and ultimately human-to-human transmission. If this situation occurs, it remains unknown whether pre-existing immunity, developed from prior exposure to related influenza infections and/or influenza vaccination, would prevent any significant impact on humans.
Immunity tests are often heralded as “game-changers” in understanding population risk from infectious diseases; however, these tests largely focus on antibody responses and are often inaccurate. Instead, recent academic reports demonstrate that protection from influenza relies on certain cells of the immune system, called ‘T cells’.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, ImmunoServ developed the world’s first standardised, scalable blood test to measure an individual’s T cell response (called the ‘Immuno-T’ test). The test identified individuals most at-risk from SARS-CoV-2 infection, based on the presence of T cells responding to the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
ImmunoServ’s project in collaboration with Cardiff University will use the ‘Immuno-T’ platform to develop a scalable capillary blood test that measures T cell responses to the latest circulating strain of H5N1 avian influenza. Once optimised, donors from across the UK will be recruited to a pilot immunity study to assess pre-existing T cell responses to H5N1, using blood collected by the individual at their home and shipped to ImmunoServ’s laboratory in Cardiff.
Data obtained from this test will help determine population immunity to future threat of H5N1. This will inform policy decisions by public health bodies and allow vaccine manufacturers to better assess induction of protective immune responses by avian influenza vaccines.
To read more about the 11 projects announced by iiCON and the UKRI Tackling Infection funding please click here.
To read more about ImmunoServ’s extensive R&D pipeline please click here.