The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has today unveiled its world-leading Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre (VDEC), which is building on its pandemic legacy and helping develop life-saving new vaccines for the UK and worldwide.
The center is situated at the UKHSA’s Porton Down site, where it is co-located with other services delivered separately by partners including the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory.
The creation of the center, in over 2,800 square meters of laboratory space at Porton Down, is a major part of UKHSA’s 3-year strategy and incorporates over 200 leading scientists working on around 100 wide-ranging projects, including tackling deadly pathogens with pandemic potential.
Its work involves supporting the development of new vaccines by testing and evaluating them against threats capable of causing a health emergency. The Centre’s work is conducted throughout the vaccine lifecycle, from early in the vaccine product design through to evaluating vaccine effectiveness, which continues when new variants arise.
In particular, the center will target pathogens for which a vaccine does not exist or is not regulated in the UK, or could be improved, such as avian influenza, mpox (monkeypox) or hantavirus, a severe infection that can pass from rodents to humans.
In one example of its work, VDEC’s teams are already running phase one clinical trials for what could be a world-first vaccine against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, a virus that is spread by the bite of an infected tick and is sadly fatal in about 30% of cases.
They are also targeting common infections like tuberculosis (TB) and Clostridium difficile, a bacterial infection that can cause significant problems in healthcare settings.
Building on capabilities developed during the COVID-19 pandemic to test emerging vaccines against new variants, VDEC has been created to take that work forward and expand its remit to a wide range of other deadly pathogens and diseases.
The center has a unique set of capabilities specializing in high consequence infectious diseases and working to the highest standards of safety, quality and security, making its research and outputs trusted worldwide.