First Finlay Herrington Award
The first award in memory of Finlay Herrington will fund Professor Rajko Reljic to pursue his research project entitled:
Inhalable vaccine for prevention of glandular fever
Brief Project Summary
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection causes glandular fever and is especially common in teenagers and young adults. Symptoms can last weeks to months, especially fatigue and lack of energy. In more serious cases, patients can have excessive inflammation, develop difficulty breathing and in most extreme cases even die from complications.
A vaccine that could boost anti EBV immunity and prevent infection is highly desirable. The family of Finlay Herrington is supporting researchers at the City St George’s University of London to develop a vaccination against EBV.
Detailed project summary
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection is the most common cause of glandular fever, also called infectious mononucleosis. It is spread through saliva and can affect people of all ages but is more common in young adults and teenagers. Most people have been infected with EBV at some time in their lives, and it is believed that the virus remains in the body for life, causing flare-ups in some individuals.
As EBV infects cells in the throat before spreading in the body, such vaccine should be ideally administered by inhalation, to induce immunity at the site of infection.
In this proposal, Professor Reljic intends to test his newly developed and recently patented inhalable vaccine technology for prevention of EBV reactivation. He will adopt this vaccine technology to EBV by incorporating EBV specific viral protein that is known to be a target for immune responses and virus-neutralising antibodies.
He will test the new vaccine in experimental models of infection by nasal route and by also exposing human tonsil cells to the vaccine, to see if it can induce protective immunity.
Following successful demonstration of the proof-of-concept, he intends to apply for research grant funding to allow him to progress towards clinical testing in humans in the future.
Professor Rajko Reljic is a Professor in Immunology who specialises in vaccine development and testing, with 25 years of experience in the field. He is currently the Head of Immunology and Host Response section at the Institute for Infection and Immunity at City St George’s, University of London, and Deputy Director of the Institute. He has previously worked at King’s College, London and at the Department for Medicine at the University of Cambridge.
