Human infection challenge in the pandemic era and beyond, HIC-Vac annual meeting report, 2022

Megan V C Barnes; Anika Mandla; Emma Smith; Maija Maskuniitty; Peter J M Openshaw; HIC-Vac meeting contributors

doi:10.1093/immadv/ltad024

Human infection challenge in the pandemic era and beyond, HIC-Vac annual meeting report, 2022

Immunother Adv. 2023 Oct 31;3(1):ltad024. doi: 10.1093/immadv/ltad024. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Megan V C Barnes¹, Anika Mandla¹, Emma Smith², Maija Maskuniitty¹, Peter J M Openshaw¹; HIC-Vac meeting contributors

Collaborators

HIC-Vac meeting contributors:
Yara-Natalie Abo³, Stephanie Ascough⁴, Helen Ashwin⁵, Panisadee Avirutnan⁶, Andrew P Catchpole⁷, Primus Che Chi⁸, Christopher Chiu⁴, Thomas C Darton⁹, Emmanuella Driciru¹⁰, Dingase Dula¹¹, Daniela M Ferreira¹², Alastair Fraser¹³, Phoebe Garrett¹³, Diane Gbesemete¹⁴, Stephen Gordon¹¹, David L Heymann¹⁵, Emma Houlder¹⁶, Euzebiusz Jamrozik¹⁷, Melissa Kapulu⁸, Enock Kessy¹⁸, Anna M Overgaard Kildemoes¹⁶, Jan Pieter Koopman¹⁶, Helen McShane¹⁷, Oranich Navanukroh⁶, Faith H Osier⁴, Joshua Osowicki¹⁹, Vy Pham²⁰, Andrew J Pollard¹⁷, Woraphat Ratta-Apha⁶, Sarah E Silk¹⁷, Saranya Sridhar²¹, Kena A Swanson²², Kawsar R Talaat²³, Ryan S Thwaites⁴, Orly Welch¹³

Affiliations

¹ National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, London, UK.
² Department of Infectious Disease, Imperial College London, London, UK.
³ Murdoch Children's Research Institute, the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, Australia.
⁴ Imperial College London, UK.
⁵ University of York, UK.
⁶ Mahidol University, Thailand.
⁷ hVIVO, UK.
⁸ KEMRI Wellcome Research Programme, Kenya.
⁹ University of Sheffield, UK.
¹⁰ CHI-S-Uganda, Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands.
¹¹ Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme, Malawi.
¹² University of Oxford, UK, and Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, UK.
¹³ 1Day Sooner, UK.
¹⁴ University of Southampton, UK.
¹⁵ London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.
¹⁶ Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands.
¹⁷ University of Oxford, UK.
¹⁸ Ifakara Health Institute, Tanzania.
¹⁹ Murdoch Children's Research Institute, the Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne, and the University of Melbourne, Australia.
²⁰ Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Vietnam.
²¹ Sanofi Pasteur and Inno4Vac, UK.
²² Pfizer, USA.
²³ Johns Hopkins University, USA.

Abstract

HIC-Vac is an international network of researchers dedicated to developing human infection challenge studies to accelerate vaccine development against pathogens of high global impact. The HIC-Vac Annual Meeting (3rd and 4th November 2022) brought together stakeholders including researchers, ethicists, volunteers, policymakers, industry partners, and funders with a strong representation from low- and middle-income countries. The network enables sharing of research findings, especially in endemic regions. Discussions included pandemic preparedness and the role of human challenge to accelerate vaccine development during outbreak, with industry speakers emphasising the great utility of human challenge in vaccine development. Public consent, engagement, and participation in human challenge studies were addressed, along with the role of embedded social science and empirical studies to uncover social, ethical, and regulatory issues around human infection challenge studies. Study volunteers shared their experiences and motivations for participating in studies. This report summarises completed and ongoing human challenge studies across a variety of pathogens and demographics, and addresses other key issues discussed at the meeting.

Keywords: controlled human infection models; experimental medicine; infectious disease; low-middle-income countries; mucosal immunology; vaccination.

Publication types

Review

Abstract

Publication types

Grants and funding