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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TRANSVAC2 (European Vaccine Research and Development Infrastructure)

Teaser

The overall objective of TRANSVAC2 is to support innovation for both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine development. Additionally, the goal is to optimise the existing knowledge and expertise gained during the development of existing human and animal vaccines by supporting...

Summary

The overall objective of TRANSVAC2 is to support innovation for both prophylactic and therapeutic vaccine development. Additionally, the goal is to optimise the existing knowledge and expertise gained during the development of existing human and animal vaccines by supporting the translational gap in biomedical research, and by establishing mutually-beneficial cooperation between public vaccine R&D institutions, vaccine initiatives and networks, related infrastructures, SME’s, and partners in the pharmaceutical industry. In order to achieve this, TRANSVAC2 aims to reach the following specific objectives:
- Develop a sustainable infrastructure accelerating vaccine R&D - construct an efficient and coordinated research and innovation environment by integrating key infrastructures and related initiatives from Europe and beyond, focused around the sustainable vaccine infrastructure:
-Stimulate technological innovation within Europe by fostering research by providing scientific and technical services to the vaccine R&D community:
-Strengthen and disseminate European vaccine expertise by offering classroom and laboratory training in vaccinology
-Perform joint research activities that continuously enhance and improve the services offered by the infrastructure.
-Maximise engagement of the European vaccine industry, including large pharmaceutical companies and SMEs
-Disseminate scientific information and communicate TRANSVAC2’s activities to the scientific community and general public:
-Take an active role in policy development, providing evidence-based recommendations to legislators and regulatory bodies.

Work performed

Within the first 18 months of the project, several activities have been initiated and successfully completed:
- In the first reporting period, 3 calls for trans-national access have been completed. In total 27 applications were submitted (including 5 resubmissions) by 18 research institutions and 3 SMEs from 10 countries within Europe and 3 overseas. 25 services were granted to 14 projects (14 applicants) submitted by SMEs and research institutions from 9 countries within Europe and 1 from South America.
- Two rounds of training modules in vaccinology at leading European centres that can be combined to create customised international courses on vaccine R&D have been set up and announced to the public. Moreover, 2 calls for trainings for 3 training modules were launched, where 34 participants were selected: M1: Clinical vaccine development and biomanufacturing, M2: Human and Veterinary vaccine development, M3: Adjuvants and vaccine formulation.
- Research activities within all project platforms have been initiated (Technology, Immunocorrelates and Systems Biology, Animal Models and Clinical trial Support) and some data generated within Platform Immunocorrelates and Systems Biology have been already presented at international scientific meetings.
- A Board of Stakeholders (BoS) comprising representatives of policy and decision makers, industry associations and European infrastructures was established in August 2017. A first BoS workshop organized in June 2018 in Brussels was focused on identifying the gaps in existing European vaccine roadmaps (TRANSVAC and IPROVE). Based on the identified gaps, TRANSVAC2 is aiming to take an active role in policy development, providing evidence-based recommendations to legislators and regulatory bodies - a strategy will be proposed for updating the TRANSVAC roadmap that might support the development of a strategic business plan for a sustainable vaccine R&D infrastructure in Europe.
- Multiple promotional actions with the use of different communication tools were implemented to disseminate scientific information and communicate TRANSVAC2’s activities to the scientific community and general public. The project was presented (posters, presentations) and other promotional materials (flyers) were distributed at more than 20 scientific meetings (congresses, conferences and workshops), the outreach of the project was enhanced by project and partners’ websites. Additionally, a promotional movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sadifFegks) and a story of TRANSVAC2 as a successful project (http://ec.europa.eu/research/infocentre/article_en.cfm?&artid=49836&caller=FP) are available to the general public.

Final results

TRANSVAC2 will make a major contribution towards seven main expected impacts for Integrating Activities described in the “Work Programme 2016-17 – European Research Infrastructures”:
1. The TRANSVAC2 consortium is strongly committed to offering high-value scientific, technical and support services that will keep pace with evolving technologies and procedures, and that will be aligned with the demands of the vaccine development community. This will include simplified and more efficient access to services with a greater focus on user needs.
2. Developing synergies and complementarities with related European infrastructures: With input from the ESFRI partners and from the members of the Board of Stakeholders, the TRANSVAC2 consortium will actively monitor the evolving landscape of European research infrastructures, and will foster synergies as well as promote integration with additional infrastructures that might be established at the European and regional levels in the future.
3. Fostering innovation: TRANSVAC2 will facilitate and accelerate the development of innovative vaccines and ultimately will support their translation from vaccine candidates into products available on the market, thus converting investment in early-stage public R&D into economic benefits.
4. Educating the next generation of vaccine researchers: TRANSVAC2 will drive Europe’s capacity in vaccinology through education and practical training, targeting European researchers from industry and academia. The training program links leading institutions in Europe, and meets educational goals for a variety of vaccinology topics.
5. Strengthening cross-disciplinary integration and the sharing of knowledge and technology: TRANSVAC2 will integrate and strengthen a diverse range of key research capabilities and knowledge capacities that currently exist in different EU Member States. It integrates individual capacities throughout the translational vaccine R&D innovation chain, including discovery research, preclinical and early clinical development, and regulatory science. TRANSVAC2 will synergise and support the development of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines through cross-disciplinary teamwork and will combine and build on knowledge and technology from both the human and veterinary vaccine fields.
6. Integration of major scientific equipment or sets of instruments and of knowledge-based resources: TRANSVAC2 has succeeded in bringing together twenty-six leading European organisations involved in vaccine R&D, which in the context of this infrastructure will merge into a single source of all major scientific equipment and state-of-the-art facilities required to offer high quality services to support activities.
7. Facilitating the use of vaccines beyond research and contributing to evidence-based policy making: TRANSVAC2 will identify existing gaps and unmet needs, and will use the regulatory platform as a forum for exchange, sharing and discussion, benefiting from the input of different TRANSVAC2 stakeholders.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.transvac.org/.