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The projects are supported as part of ARIA’s Sustained Viral Resilience programme, a £57 million initiative led by Programme Director Brian Wang. In this programme, 11 funded teams will explore and unlock ways to create sustained innate immunoprophylactics (SIIPs) - a new class of medicines that provide durable, broad-spectrum protection against respiratory viruses by engineering the innate immune system.
Viruses are a large and diverse group of microorganisms, causing diseases that often affect the respiratory tract – ranging from the common cold to COVID-19 – and posing a continued risk of pandemic outbreaks. Viral infections also impose a substantial economic burden in the UK and worldwide, with the COVID-19 pandemic estimated to have cost the global economy more than £10tn.
The three successful projects at Oxford will be led by Mark Coles at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology in the Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences (NDORMS), Paul Klenerman at the Nuffield Department of Medicine (NDM) and Jan Rehwinkel at the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine (WIMM) in the Radcliffe Department of Medicine (RDM). These projects will draw on skills and expertise from collaborators across the University, and beyond, with Molly Stevens from the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics playing an important role in all three projects.