NEW YORK, JUNE 11, 2018 - The Human Vaccines Project, a nonprofit public-private partnership focused on decoding the immune system to improve human health, today announced its first international scientific hub through a partnership with Telethon Kids Institute. Based in Perth, Western Australia, Telethon Kids Institute is recognized as a world leader in addressing the health of pediatric and indigenous populations.
Telethon Kids brings extensive and complementary scientific capacity to the Project. As one of Australia's leading systems biology centers, with a team of almost 600 dedicated researchers and support staff, the organization is focused on discovering how and why childhood diseases develop, and aims to prevent and cure them through better therapies and interventions. Telethon Kids also engages with global researchers in low-resource settings including extensive collaboration with researchers in Papua New Guinea.
"Telethon Kids is a rapidly growing research institute in Australia that brings exceptional expertise to the Human Vaccines Project," said Wayne Koff, PhD, president and CEO of the Human Vaccines Project. "The Institute's knowledge in pediatrics and indigenous populations will enhance our efforts toward better vaccines and immunotherapies, as well as our work towards a universal flu vaccine."
The research institute will also join other leading academic, industry, nonprofit and government organizations as a partner of the Project's Universal Influenza Vaccine Initiative (UIVI), a nonprofit partnership that will conduct comprehensive clinical research studies to determine how the human immune system prevents and controls influenza - with a goal of accelerating the development of a universal flu vaccine that works across multiple populations and strains. Since Australia's influenza season is opposite that of the Northern Hemisphere, this collaboration creates an opportunity for clinical studies to continue throughout the year.
"Partnering with the Human Vaccines Project will advance our shared mission of someday wiping out infectious diseases globally," said Jonathan Carapetis, PhD, director of the Telethon Kids Institute. "We are extremely grateful to our funding partners at Perth Children's Hospital Foundation for helping enable this innovative partnership. It's so important to be working towards a longer-term solution for diseases such as influenza where children are at higher risk of infection and death, and exploring new approaches that will increase our knowledge and ability to create next-generation vaccines and immunotherapies."
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About the Human Vaccines Project
The Human Vaccines Project is a nonprofit public-private partnership with a mission to decode the human immune system to accelerate the development of vaccines and immunotherapies against major global diseases. The Project brings together leading academic research centers, industrial partners, nonprofits and governments to address the primary scientific barriers to developing new vaccines and immunotherapies. Support and funders for the Project include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Michelson Medical Research Foundation, GSK, MedImmune, Illumina, Johnson & Johnson/Janssen, Pfizer, Moderna, Boehringer Ingelheim, Aeras, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, University of California San Diego, The Scripps Research Institute, J. Craig Venter Institute and La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology. To learn more, visit http://www.humanvaccinesproject.org and follow @HumanVacProject on Twitter. For media inquiries, contact Kierstin Coatney at Kierstin@gga.nyc.