From December 3rd – 7th 2018 , the GCRF Networks Vaccinology Course was held in Bangkok.
IMPRINT awarded three travel scholarships to attend the course to Dr Lok Bahadur Shrestha from Nepal, Nasamon Wanlapakorn from Thailand and Dr Shona Moore from the UK.

We are excited to share Lok´s and Shona´s impression of the course:

I am Lok Bahadur Shrestha, Assistant Professor at the B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS), Dharan, Nepal. The GCRF Networks Vaccinology Course in Bangkok was a fruitful course. I would like to thank the IMPRINT-Network for sponsoring me to attend. The course was well organized with a beautiful venue, great management and top-notch speakers. The lectures covered everything in vaccinology; right from the basic immunology to the final licensing steps of a candidate vaccine. The presentations were very insightful and interactive that kept us all engaged. The discussion sessions after each lecture were informative, even the coffee breaks were fruitful with the two-way interaction between the speakers and participants. The speakers were top vaccinologists of the world and available to talk to during the whole course. The course exceeded my expectations in every way. This course is definitely going to help me a lot in the path of vaccine research. I would like to thank the IMPRINT Network and the whole organizing team again for this wonderful opportunity and hope to be a part of this team in the near future.

I am Shona Moore, a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Liverpool, Institute of Infection and Global Health. In December 2018 I attended the GCRF Networks Vaccinology Course as an IMPRINT network scholar. The workshop, based at the wonderful Anantara Riverside Resort in Bangkok, was attended by 40 delegates and 20 speakers with a range of experience across the vaccine development pipeline and from both human and veterinary fields. Set in a fantastic location on the banks of the Chao Phraya river, the course gave a thorough and comprehensive insight into the field of vaccinology and had a varied schedule of excellent talks by outstanding speakers. As an early career researcher, attending the course not only expanded my knowledge of vaccinology but provided invaluable networking opportunity. I particularly enjoyed exploring the vaccinology theme across both human and veterinary fields. As a human immunologist, this opened my eyes to some of the unique challenges faced in the veterinary field. Set in such a vibrant and exciting city, the whole experience was unforgettable.

Sadly, the measles virus is sparking grave concern worldwide, as the highly contagious airborne disease makes a resurgence. In recent months, it has been spreading in countries including the United States, the Philippines and Madagascar. News Stream CNN spoke to Prof. Heidi Larson, our IMPRINT steering committee member and director of the Vaccine Confidence Project on the issue. Heidi also joined the Al Jazeera inside story “ Why is measles back and spreading?”.

On BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, the mum of woman disabled by measles and Heidi talked on responsibility to vaccinate.

For more information on this topics, please also refer to the Vaccine Confidence Project News Section.

The MatImms project consists of a multi-disciplinary research team of midwives, doctors and scientists that investigates vaccination in pregnancy. The project is led by our network PI Prof. Beate Kampmann. MatImms encourages vaccination in pregnancy to protect newborn babies from preventable infections. In the laboratory, MatImms studies the impact of vaccines on immunity in mothers and babies. In order to connect with pregnant women, the MatImms Smartphone App has been developed to improve vaccine information available, enabling pregnant women and their support networks to make informed choices. Our challenge 1 co-lead Beth Holder co-developed the App and its contents.

MatImms App is available for download on both Android and iPhone:

Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.ac.imperial.vip_matimms

iPhone:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/vaccines-in-pregnancy-matimms/id1082727471?mt=8

The Advancing Maternal Immunization collaboration (AMI), coordinated by PATH in collaboration with the WHO, brings together diverse stakeholders from around the world and across immunization and maternal, newborn, and child health programs to identify a pathway to enable informed decision-making and introduction of maternal RSV vaccines, particularly in LMICs, and to provide tools to help decision-makers, implementers, researchers, and others navigate that pathway successfully. Maternal vaccines are being developed for RSV and could be available in a few years, underscoring a need to establish an environment poised for vaccine decision-making and introduction now. The latest report can be downloaded here. Please also check out the following posts related to maternal immunization:

• Gavi’s Vaccines Work blog: “Readying the world for maternal RSV vaccine”
• Maternal Health Task Force blog: “From pregnancy to protection: Advancing the intersection between antenatal care and immunization”

From September 3rd – 12th of September, the African Advanced Vaccinology Course (Afro-ADVAC) was held in September in Gauteng, South Africa with strong support of our IMPRINT executive board member Clare Cutland.

IMPRINT awarded three travel scholarships to attend Afro-ADVAC to Dr Mbambole Ngwenyi Alake Grace from Cameroon, Dr Smriti Mathema from Nepal and Dr Flaviah Namiiro from Uganda.

We are excited to share Smriti’s and Flaviah’s impressions of the course:

I am Dr Smriti Mathema, a Pediatrician from Kathmandu, Nepal working as an Assistant Professor at a Medical College here. I have been working in the field of immunization for the last 8 years and was looking for a formal vaccinology course when I came across Afro-ADVAC. Coming from a LMIC with limited grant opportunities, I would not have been able to attend the course without financial aid. Thanks to IMPRINT, I got the chance to participate in Afro-ADVAC 2018, where not only was I able to enhance my knowledge on topics like Immunology, epidemiology, safety assessment and implementation, but also to open my eyes to the unlimited scope of research in this field. This was also an excellent platform to learn more on recent vaccine development and trials.

My personal highlight was to have the privilege to be in the same room, listen to, interact and connect with worldwide leaders in the field of vaccinology. We also got an opportunity to share the work we have done and our contribution to vaccinology and I was delighted to win the first prize in the free paper presentation done by the delegates.

This course has also helped me put into perspective the research possibilities in Nepal and as an immediate-past Chair of Nepal Pediatric Society’s Immunization Committee has taught me some valuable lessons on planning for the introduction of new vaccines into public immunization programs.

This was my first visit to South Africa and absolutely enjoyed the experience. The venue was breath-taking, the food awesome and the people very warm. Now, I have a friend in almost each country of the African continent!

I am Dr Flaviah Namiiro, a Pediatrician at Mulago National Referral Hospital which is the training Institution for Makerere University College of Health Sciences, in Kampala, Uganda. I have worked in the Neonatal Unit for the past seven years and I am actively involved in training, clinical research and supervision of both graduate and undergraduate Medical students in my country.

In September 2018, I was privileged to benefit from the IMPRINT sponsorship to attend the Afro-ADVAC 10-day training. Listening to experts in the field of Vaccinology from all over the world was really fascinating. It was the first time in my career and entire medical training that I had such extensive exposure to different aspects of vaccinology. The updates on various topics, prospects for the future, lessons drawn from the past and experiences shared from both participants and presenters was enriching. Looking at e.g. vaccine hesitancy, we all have a role to play at various levels to achieve a desired goal of preventing/eliminating disease and promoting health for all. I learnt that even when resources, energy and efforts are put to what is considered good use, things may still go wrong because of small issues scientist might overlook. As a clinician I have developed a keen interest in preterm infants over the years and in regard to the vaccines for this high-risk group I had some concerns. A recent basic research finding on vaccine utilization among preterm infants from one of my students showed a marked delay of uptake. The fear to use vaccines in this group was not only raised by the mothers but also by health workers who thought that the infants were too small to be able to handle the vaccines. Following the Afro-ADVAC course, I was charged to do more in my area of expertise to contribute to science.

IMPRINT is featured in the latest Impact Science report. Our network PIs Beate Kampmann and Chrissie Jones talk about the “value of vaccination in pregnancy” (starting from page 44, please find the digital edition here). They discuss our innovative and game-changing network activities as well as the network´s long-term global impact. Our IMPRINT fellow Alansana Darboe is also featured and shares how the IMPRINT fellowship will foster his research career. Enjoy!

The Global Maternal and Neonatal Health funding call is a joint initiative between the Medical Research Council, partly funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF), and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The purpose of this call is to address the burden of maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity in low and middle-income countries (LMIC), by funding high-quality proposals across the spectrum of basic to applied research. Awards will support multidisciplinary research, build and strengthen research partnerships, and promote capacity building in global maternal and neonatal health research. Applications are particularly encouraged from principal investigators based at organisations in LMIC, as well as from eligible research organisations based in the UK working in equitable partnership with LMIC colleagues.

Open date: 16 Jan 2019
Closing date: 24 Apr 2019 16:00 GMT

For more details on the call, please refer to the website.

The Pregnancy Research Ethics for Vaccines, Epidemics, and New Technologies (PREVENT) is committed to developing concrete, actionable, consensus-driven ethics guidance on how to equitably include the interests of pregnant women and their offspring in vaccine R&D for priority pathogens and emerging epidemic threats. The multi-disciplinary approach brings together a team of scholars and scientists with expertise in bioethics, maternal immunization, maternal-fetal medicine, obstetrics, pediatrics, philosophy, public health, and vaccine research.

You can download the PREVENT report on the subject of inclusion of pregnant women in vaccine trials in emergencies here. The authors make multiple recommendations to funders, industry as well as academia which may be of great interest to many of you.

Our IMPRINT executive board member and challenge 5 co-lead Sonali Kochhar is part of the working team and co-authored the report.

PREVENT is a grant-funded project led by faculty at Johns Hopkins University alongside co-investigators at Georgetown University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with external contributions from Working Group Members. The PREVENT Project is funded by the Wellcome Trust.

The 5th ReSViNET Foundation Conference RSVVW 2019, a global conference on novel RSV therapeutics will be held on 12-14 November 2019, in the beautiful capital city of Ghana, Accra. The main goal of this conference is to offer a platform where the RSV community can share and discuss the latest research focusing on prevention as well as treatment of RSV infection. It aims to bring together stakeholders involved in RSV research such as scientists, physicians, pharmaceutical companies, and representatives from FDA, PATH, WHO, EMA, NIH, and BMGF.

Researchers and physicians from around the world are invited to join the discussion and share their knowledge. Specifically, scientists and physicians from low- and middle-income countries and young researchers are encouraged to attend, and may apply with the organizers to receive support.

A diverse program is being developed by the Scientific Advisory Committee, Our IMPRINT network PI Beate Kampmann being part of it, which will include: burden of RSV disease and mortality, molecular virology, immunology, prevention and treatment developments, global health perspectives and RSV-related sequelae. For more details on travel funds and latest updates, please visit the website (www.resvinet.org).

Heidi Larson, our challenge 4 co-lead and director of the Vaccine Confidence Project has published the following articles and report on vaccine confidence this month:

• In “The biggest pandemic risk? Viral misinformation,” Heidi warns that „a century after the world’s worst flu epidemic, rapid spread of misinformation is undermining trust in vaccines crucial to public health.“
• The “State of Vaccine Confidence in the EU,” a report for the European Commission published in October by the LSHTM and the Vaccine Confidence Project, assessed the overall state of confidence in vaccines among the public in all 28 EU member states and among general practitioners (GP) in ten EU member states between 2015 and 2018. Confidence in (and demand for) vaccines is influenced by a number of factors, including the importance, safety, and effectiveness of vaccines. To examine the extent of public and GP confidence in vaccines, the authors conducted the largest ever study on attitudes to vaccines and vaccination in the EU. They have found a range of novel EU-wide and country-specific insights into vaccination behaviours that may immediately impact on public policy.
• In The Lancet´s “The state of vaccine confidence” last week, Heidi suggests a five point plan on how to “move analysis into action” and overcome vaccine hesitancy.

The African Leadership in Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE) initiated Master of Science in Medicine in the field of Vaccinology starting from January 2019. This 18-month, full-time course will be hosted and run under the School of Pathology, Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits). Clare Cutland, our Executive Board member and challenge 5 co-lead organizes the programme which will appeal to medical, science and public health professionals who have an interest in vaccinology. For more information on eligibility and costs, please visit their website and see the following information. The deadline for application is December 10th.

“The Fourth International Neonatal and Maternal Immunization Symposium (INMIS 2017): Toward Integrating Maternal and Infant Immunization Programs“ has recently been published; it provides an overview of the proceedings of the 4th International Maternal and Neonatal Immunization Symposium held last year in Brussels, where presentations focused on the state-of-the-art research on the development and implementation of vaccines given during pregnancy for the protection of mothers and infants. All authors are IMPRINT network or board members.

The Makere/UVRI Infection and Immunity Centre of Excellence, Uganda is running an intensive two-week modular course “Immunology in the Tropics” from December 3rd – 14th in Entebbe, Uganda in collaboration with Wellcome Trust designed to cover all aspects of tuberculosis disease, from bedside to bench. Week one “The Immunology of Tuberculosis” offers up-to-date lectures, discussion of research papers and cutting-edge research talks by international expert; week two “Tuberculosis Practicals offers cutting edge practical immunology classes.

This is an advanced course ideally suited to PhD and MSc candidates, or clinicians and lecturers wishing to update their Immunology knowledge.

The application deadline is Friday, November 2nd, 2018.

For more information, please visit www.muii.org.ug. You can download the application form here and send it directly to mak-uvri.rtp@mrcuganda.org.

Beate Kampmann, our network PI, Beth Holder, our challenge 1 co-lead and Sonali Kochhar, our challenge 5 co-lead, introduced IMPRINT at the “Workshop cum Expert Review Meeting on Maternal Immunization” September 10th in New Delhi, organized by the PRERNA Platform, KEM Hospital Research Centre Pune, with support from WHO-TDR Fellowship in Clinical Research and Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The meeting was attended by global and Indian public health, infectious disease, vaccine and clinical experts.

The objectives of the meeting were to

• foster discussion among national and global leaders in maternal immunization to identify and prioritise research areas in maternal immunization in India
• initiate research proposal development in maternal immunization in collaboration with national and international partners

Congratulations to Dr Lok Bahadur Shrestha, assistant professor at the B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS), Dharan, Nepal; Nasamon Wanlapakorn from Thailand, currently pursuing her PhD at the Institute of Infection and Global Health at the University of Liverpool, UK and Dr Shona Moore, Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the University of Liverpool, Institute of Infection and Global Health, UK. They successfully applied for IMPRINT scholarships to attend the GCRF Networks Vaccinology Course in Bangkok.

The 5 day workshop on veterinary and human vaccinology is run by the GCRF Networks in Vaccines Research and Development (IVVN, BactiVac, HIC-Vac, IMPRINT, and VALIDATE) in association with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UN FAO), through the European Commission for the Control of Foot and Mouth Disease (EuFMD), from Monday 3rd through Friday 7th December 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand. The course, aimed at post-graduate students and early career researchers, addresses aspects of human and animal vaccinology, the vaccine development process, biomanufacturing, regulatory and ethical issues. The course will be delivered by an exceptional line up of world renowned academic and industrial speakers and resonates with the ‘One Health’ agenda by highlighting the synergies between the human and veterinary vaccinology fields from scientific, technological and regulatory perspectives. The course emulates the successful series of Jenner Institute training courses in Africa.

Congratulations to all of them!!
Sign up for our membership, and receive news about current IMPRINT and external funding opportunities.

From September 3rd – 12th of September, the African Advanced Vaccinology Course (Afro-ADVAC) was held in September in Gauteng, South Africa hosted by the African Local Initiative for Vaccinology Expertise (ALIVE), University of the Witwatersrand, under the guidance of Professors Shabir Madhi and Helen Rees and with the strong support of our IMPRINT executive board member and our challenge 5 co-lead Clare Cutland.

The Afro-ADVAC course targeted mid- to senior level scientists, medical professionals and public health specialists, who are involved in vaccine development, clinical trials, implementation - or management of vaccination strategies, and who have decision-making or advisory responsibilities in their region or country.

IMPRINT awarded three travel scholarships to
Dr Mbambole Ngwenyi Alake Grace, Sub-Director for Immunization at the Ministry of Public Health, Cameroon
Dr Smriti Mathema, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Kathmandu Medical College and Teaching Hospital, Nepal
and
Dr Flaviah Namiiro, Paediatrician/ Neonatologist at Mulago National Referral Hospital and Honorary lecturer at Makerere University, College of Health Sciences, Kampala, Uganda.

Congratulations to the three of them – we hope you enjoyed the course!!
Sign up for our membership, and receive news about current IMPRINT and external funding opportunities.

We will regularly highlight publications from IMPRINT members and/or with relevance to the issue of maternal immunization in this section – please find current papers below:

• Impact of monovalent rotavirus vaccine on diarrhoea-associated post-neonatal infant mortality in rural communities in Malawi: a population-based birth cohort study
  Naor Bar-Zeev, Carina King, Tambosi Phiri, James Beard, Hazzie Mvula, Amelia C Crampin, Ellen Heinsbroek, Sonia Lewycka, Jacqueline E Tate, Umesh D Parashar, Anthony Costello, Charles Mwansambo, Robert S Heyderman, Neil French, Nigel A Cunliffe, for the VacSurv Consortium
  Lancet Glob Health. 2018 Sep;6(9):e1036-e1044. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(18)30314-0.
  Dr Naor Bar-Zeev and Prof. Neil French are our IMPRINT challenge 6 leads.
• Professor Heidi J. Larson, Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and our IMPRINT challenge 4 co-lead talked to Buzzfeed about the current measles outbreak across Europe and the public’s in vaccination.

Beate Kampmann, our IMPRINT network PI, and Naor Bar-Zeev, our challenge 6 co-lead, joined 58 other individuals across 25 organizations in 14 countries to publish the AMI gap analysis report on respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) maternal immunization. The Advancing Maternal Immunization collaboration (AMI), coordinated by PATH in collaboration with the WHO, brings together diverse stakeholders from around the world and across immunization and maternal, newborn, and child health programs to identify a pathway to enable informed decision-making and introduction of maternal RSV vaccines, particularly in LMICs, and to provide tools to help decision-makers, implementers, researchers, and others navigate that pathway successfully.

Maternal vaccines are being developed for RSV and could be available in a few years, underscoring a need to establish an environment poised for vaccine decision-making and introduction now.

We will regularly highlight publications from IMPRINT members and/or with relevance to the issue of maternal immunization in this section – please find current papers below:

• Beyond Passive immunity: Is There Priming of the Fetal Immune System Following Vaccination in Pregnancy and What Are the Potential Clinical Implications David R. Wilcox and Chrissie E. Jones. Front. Immunol. 9:1548. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2018.01548

  Prof. Chrissie Jones is the Co-director of IMPRINT and challenge 2 co-lead, Dr Christopher Wilcox is one of our IMPRINT members.

• Professor Heidi J. Larson, Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, where she is a Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science and our IMPRINT challenge 4 co-lead joined a “A Conversation About the Current State of Vaccines” at the London International Development Center.

The following funding opportunities just recently opened for early to mid-career researchers:

• The Newton Fund Advanced Fellowships and Mobility grants are now open.

  Newton Advanced Fellowships provide early to mid-career international researchers who already have a track record with an opportunity to develop their research strengths and capabilities, and those of their group or network, through training, collaboration and visits with a partner in the UK. Fellowships awarded by the British Academy are currently only available for researchers in the following countries: China, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey.

  Find all details at:  https://www.britac.ac.uk/newton-advanced-fellowships

  Closes on Wednesday, 5th of September 2018.

• In partnership with UNESCO’s Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD), The International Development Research Center (IDRC) just announced the first call for applications for the new Early Career Women Scientists (ECWS) fellowships.

  Fellowships with a value of up to US$50,000 each will be awarded to women scientists from countries where the capacity for science and technology is lagging; who have completed their PhD in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics; and employed at an academic or scientific research institute in one of the eligible countries.

  Closes on Friday, 31st of August 2018.

Congratulations our new awardees and their collaborating partners! Titles and lay summaries of the projects can be found on our projects website.

The awards provide up to £25,000 over one year to support collaborations between developing countries and the UK and to hold networking events aimed at addressing global challenges. The scheme allows researchers from across disciplines and from developing countries and the UK to hold networking events, to forge new links and generate innovative transdisciplinary research ideas to address global challenges.

Key dates: Round 3 of the scheme is now open, and will close on 8 August 2018.

Time flies! On May 22nd 2018, our IMPRINT Board members came together in London to review the first completed year of the network’s activities, summarize the status of scientific progress in the six thematic challenges, critically assess the network’s strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities, and jointly plan ahead.

Twelve months down the road, all structures are in place and fully functional, the second round of applications under the pump priming and fellowship schemes is already being reviewed, candidates selected in the first calls have started their projects, and preparations for the first full network meeting in September are nearing completion. Additional calls for Public Engagement activities will be published soon, and first selected training opportunities are about to be communicated to the continuously increasing network membership.

Excited about so much progress in year one, we are now looking forward to expanding the set of activities even further in year number two.

Thousands of clinicians, researchers, residents, and students will come together for the annual Meeting of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Diseases on May 28th – June 2nd in Malmö, Sweden.

Join our IMPRINT Co-PI Chrissie Jones for our Research Session on Thursday, May 31, 2018 at 14:00-15:30 (Room: Romeo).

In addition, Dr Chrissie Jones will also be available during the “Meet the Professor” Session on Thursday; May 31st at 7:00-7:25 (Session code ET15) and present “a randomized controlled trial comparing two pertussis-containing vaccines in pregnancy and vaccine responses in UK mothers and their infants (Immunizing Mums Against Pertussis, IMAP2), Thursday, May 31st from 10:00-10.15 (Session code SET01).

We are happy to announce that IMPRINT has been awarded a £599,920 supplement under The Industrial Challenge Strategy Fund (ICSF), which will allow us to bring additional and diverse pump-priming activities to our Network and to enhance collaborations between industry and academic researchers.

The ICSF aims to bring together the UK’s world-leading research with business to meet the major industrial and societal challenges of our time, including leading-edge healthcare.

With the additional funding, we are not only able to fund more exciting research projects, but also to introduce special industry-academia-sessions at our network meetings to spark and strengthen cross-sectoral collaboration. In addition, we will produce educational materials to explain our science to lay audiences, give out IMPRINT Public Engagement Awards, and offer transferable skills training for our members at different levels – particularly to young scientists.

We have just added our 100th member to your network. Our members come from 25 different countries. Join us today and become eligible for pump priming and fellowship funding. You can help us tackle the challenges in the best use of vaccines in pregnancy and newborns.

Congratulations to our first two fellowship awardees and their collaborating partners whose projects will start from May 2018!

Dr Alansana Darboe from the Vaccine & Immunity Theme, Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine will be leading the project "Understanding interactions between Maternal IgG and Neonatal Innate Immune Cells (MINIC)" that will be implemented together with the two Co-PIs Prof Tobias Kollmann from the Department of Pediatrics at the University of British Columbia, Canada and Prof. Arnaud Marchant from the Institute for Medical Immunology, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium.

Dr Shadia Khandaker from the Department of Clinical Infection, Microbiology and Immunology, Institute of Infection and Global Health at the University of Liverpool will be leading the project “Towards the understanding of anti-Group B Streptococcus (GBS) protective immunity: characterisation of maternal sera in high- vs. low- GBS prevalence countries using humanised mice” that will be implemented together with the three Co-PIs Prof. Aras Kadioglu and Prof Neil French from the University of Liverpool and Prof. Samir Kumar Saha from the Child Health Research Foundation (CHRF) and the Bangladesh Institute of Child Health Research Foundation, Dhaka Shishu (Child) Hospital, Bangladesh.

IMPRINT was promoted at the first London Maternity & Midwifery Festival that took place on February 13th 2018 with over 1600 participants. This national professional festival, with leadership speakers and exhibitions, is to be held annually to highlight developments in maternity and midwifery across the South East of the United Kingdom.

Our IMPRINT network member Beth Holder and a team from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine attended the event to promote MatImms, a free Smartphone App designed by leading experts of paediatric infectious diseases at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that aims to improve vaccine information available to pregnant women, enabling them to make informed choices and encourages vaccination in pregnancy to protect newborn babies from preventable infections.  MatImms collaborate with pregnant women alongside academic, clinical and policy partners such as Public Health England and antenatal services, in the UK and globally through the Centre for International Child Health.

Matimms is led by Professor Beate Kampmann, a world leader in maternal immunization at Imperial college and one of our IMPRINT founders.

We will regularly highlight publications from IMPRINT members and/or with relevance to the issue of maternal immunization in this section – please find current papers below:

• “Failure to thrive: Case definition & guidelines for data collection, analysis, and presentation of maternal immunisation safety data

  Elizabeth Ross, Flor M. Munoz, Bassey Edem, Cassandra Nan,d Fyezah Jehan, Julie Quinn, Tamala Mallett Moore, Sanie Sesay, Hans Spiegel, Librada Fortuna, Sonali Kochhar, Jim Buttery, for The Brighton Collaboration Failure to Thrive Working Group

  Vaccine. 2017 Dec 4;35(48 Pt A):6483-6491. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2017.01.051

  Co-authored by IMPRINT founding member and challenge 5 co-lead Dr Sonali Kochhar and IMPRINT member Dr Flor M. Munoz.

• “Factors Affecting the FcRn-Mediated Transplacental Transfer of Antibodies and implications for vaccination in Pregnancy”

  Christopher R. Wilcox, Beth Holder and Christine E. Jones

  Front Immunol. 2017; 8: 1294.  Published online 2017 Oct 13. doi:  10.3389/fimmu.2017.01294

  Professor Chrissie Jones is the Co-director of IMPRINT and co-lead of challenge 2 together with Dr Beth Holder. Dr Christopher Wilcox is one of our IMPRINT members.

• “Immunization in pregnancy clinical research in low- and middle-income countries – Study design, regulatory and safety considerations”

  Sonali Kochhar, Jan Bonhoeffer, Christine E. Jones, Flor M. Muñoz, Angel Honrado, Jorgen Bauwens, Ajoke Sobanjoter Meulen, Steven Hirschfeld

  Vaccine. 2017, Volume 35, Issue 48, Part A

  Authored by our IMPRINT founding member and challenge 5 co-lead Dr Sonali Kochhar and co-authored by Dr Chrissie Jones, Co-director of IMPRINT and co-lead of challenge 2 as well as our IMPRINT members Dr Flor M. Munoz and Jorgen Bauwens.

  In case you are interested in a detailed overview about Case definition & guidelines for data collection, analysis, and presentation of immunization safety data, please refer to these publications by Dr Sonali Kochhar and other IMPRINT network members.

The ethics of maternal immunization is a topic that has been addressed in the following three publications that we want to share with you:

• Protected to death: systematic exclusion of pregnant women from Ebola virus disease trials
  Melba F. Gomes, Vânia de la Fuente-Núñez, Abha Saxena and Annette C. Kuesel
  Reproductive Health 2017, 14(Suppl 3):172 doi: 10.1186/s12978-017-0430-2
• Ethics of maternal vaccination- Involvement of women is critical in establishing guidelines
  A. T. Chamberlain, J. V. Lavery, A. White, S. B. Omer
  Science 27 Oct 2017 Vol. 358 (6362), 452-453. DOI:10.1126/science.aao4219 (you need to have a Science account in order to access the publication)
• Maternal immunisation: ethical issues
  Marcel Verweij, Philipp Lambach, Justin R Ortiz, Andreas Reis
  Lancet Infect Dis 2016; 16: e310–14 DOI: 10.1126/science.aao4219

Paul Heath, IMPRINT Executive Board member, discussed the potential of maternal vaccination to protect mothers, fetuses and infants in their first weeks of life and how to further increase their positive impact in Vaccines Today:

“To improve antenatal immunization, we need new strategies to encourage vaccination, ongoing professional education for healthcare providers, and to make maternal vaccination a routine item in women’s healthcare.”

Congratulations to our first three pump priming awardees and their collaborating partners whose projects will start in spring 2018!

Dr Qibo Zhang from the Institute of Infection and Global Health, University of Liverpool will be leading the project "Elucidating the effect of maternal immunisation on the subsequent development of T cell response following pertussis vaccination in infants" that will be implemented together with the two Co-PIs Prof. Elke Leuridan from the Centre for the Evaluation of Vaccination, Vaccine & Infectious Diseases Institute, University of Antwerp, Belgium and Prof. Yong Poovorawan from the Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.

Simon Gwapa Kimuda from the Department of Immunomodulation and Vaccines, Medical Research Council/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS, will be using in vitro mycobacterial growth inhibition assays as a tool to assess functional immune responses induced by VPM1002 vaccination in infants.
He will be working with Prof. Alison Elliott, Head of Immunomodulation and Vaccines Programme, Medical Research Council/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS and Prof. Gerhard Walzl, Head of the Department of Biomedical Sciences, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

Dr Sudaxshina Murdan from the UCL School of Pharmacy, University College London, will work on oral vaccines which generate immune responses in the vagina and prevent mother-to-baby transmission of infections during birth.
In this project she will be collaborating with Prof Abdul Basit from the UCL School of Pharmacy, University College London and Dr Fatme Mawas from the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC), UK.

All selected projects address key challenges of IMPRINT and include collaborations between HIC and LMIC countries to foster and strengthen our maternal vaccine network. They will be funded with a max of £70,000 per project and for a duration of up to 12 months. Full abstracts and further details will be published here soon.

Our IMPRINT network manager, Dr. Claudia Schacht, together with our sister Network Managers from the VALIDATE Network (Vaccine development for complex intracellular neglected pathogens), IntVetVac (the International Veterinary Vaccinology Network), HIC-Vac (The Human Challenge Model Network) and BactiVac (the Bacterial Vaccines Network) joined forces during the British Society for Immunology (BSI) meeting in Brighton from 4-7 December 2017 to promote the networks and currently open pump priming and fellowship calls. The team of managers was supported by BSI President Peter Openshaw and MRC Programme Manager Martin Broadstock in their aim of spreading the word and raising awareness of the networks and their activities.

The BSI Congress is the largest national immunology Congress in Europe and was attended by over 1,250 speakers, presenters, sponsors, exhibitors and delegates – all potential new members of one or several of our networks.