About IMMPROVE

The first generation of COVID-19 vaccines were highly effective at preventing serious disease, serving an essential role in mitigating the effects of the pandemic. Now that the urgency of the initial pandemic is waning, there is time to draw upon the wealth of experience and new learnings to re-evaluate immune-mediated protection; using this knowledge to improve future vaccines.

The consortium's vision is to focus on mechanistic understanding of the induction, and maintenance of the immune responses underpinning broad protective memory responses, with a focus on mucosal immunity. The core objectives of the consortium are:

WP1: MEMORY. To understand the immune mechanisms required for long-lived and broad protection against SARS-CoV- 2, and how to effectively induce these responses through vaccination.

WP2: LOCATION. To understand the duality of systemic and local immunity against SARS-CoV-2, their corresponding roles in protection against disease and infection/transmission, and how to replicate these advantages through vaccination.

WP3: PROTECTION. To define mechanistic correlates of protection, empowering next-generation pan-coronavirus vaccine development.

WP4: DATA. To build resilient long-term capacity in pandemic preparedness via bolstering the global network of scientists; training, developing and empowering early-career researchers in vaccinology and vaccine design; and augmenting the biosciences capability for vaccine development and rapid response to emergent pathogens.

WP5: IMPACT. Build upon the strong links of the consortium with the public, extend the network of public engagement and involvement to early-career researchers, and act as a bidirectional bridge between the public and vaccine developers / policy makers to aid support and uptake of vaccination.

Our approach is to develop initial mechanistic understanding of key questions in the field using large cohort studies (clinical trials and infection studies) and experimental model systems. We will refine these hypotheses using targeted well-defined sample-sets and in vitro tools (including tonsillar organoids, human lymph node models), and reinforce mechanistic
understanding using in vivo pre-clinical models. This strategy will be linked with an end-to-end integrated data structure, supporting specialist analysis and machine-learning, leading to an integrated mechanistic model for next-generation vaccine development.

This research programme will be delivered through a diverse but co-ordinated consortium, addressing linked thematic work-packages, in doing so we synergistically bolster our ability to address the key outstanding questions in the field and make a real impact in developing innovative vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 and other infectious disease. The contribution of the expert scientists in this consortium, their accumulated knowledge, unique facilities and proven methodologies places this consortium at the epicentre of enabling rapid control not only of SARS-CoV-2 but other potential pandemics. Through mechanistic immunology, we will deliver a new tool-kit for pandemic responsiveness, we will be ideally positioned for future vaccine design and pandemic readiness to meet the challenges of changing infection patterns in the 21st century.