Our ultimate goal is to design affordable and effective vaccines. However, to do so a thourough understanding of the hurdles on the way is paramount.
Indeed, for many years now, researchers have tested vaccine strategies that to date have all failed to provide adequate protection of human populations.
Three causes for that:
- sophisticated evasion strategies that the parasites have evolved in order to survive in the face of their host's immune attack
- poor understanding on our part of what actually constitutes optimal immune responses given the variable environment, co-infecting pathogens and genetics of both hosts and parasites
- logistical difficulties, which include production costs, delivery, stability, and safety of the more promising experimental vaccines.
We aim to approach all these aspects in an integrated way, as we strongly believe that it is only through a truly multidisciplinary understanding that we can move forward.
We have developed expertise in evolutionary theory, immunology, molecular biology, and statistics to give us the best chance to succeed.
We are fortunate to have some of the best collaborators in these fields, and to work in an engaging and thriving community of researchers (Centre for Immunity, Infection & Evolution, Institute of Immunology and Infection Research, and Institute of Evolutionary Biology).
Our research is supported by
