Developing a 'universal' pandemic influenza vaccine for use in humans and livestock

Influenza often undergoes zoonotic transfer - moving from an animal reservoir to a human host - causing pandemics. Influenza has caused four pandemics due to zoonotic transfer since 1918. In 1918-1922, the 'Spanish flu' pandemic killed 50-100 million people, in 1957 the 'Asian flu' pandemic caused 1 million deaths, in 1968 'Hong Kong' flu pandemic causes 1 million deaths, and in 2009 'swine flu' caused an estimated 300,000 deaths worldwide. Future pandemics will occur and zoonotic transfer is likely to become a greater issue as humans continue to encroach on animal habitats. In this project, we propose to characterise the immunity to these potential pandemic strains in humans, pigs and birds to determine the location of epitopes responsible for the observed immunity. The identified epitopes will be combined to make a vaccine to protect against potential pandemic influenza using cutting-edge polyplex and polymer nanoparticle vaccine vector technology.