The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a $2.5 million grant to researchers at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) for a study to determine the effects of nasal spray flu vaccine on pneumococcal bacteria.
The 2-year study, to be conducted in conjunction with the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, will recruit almost 300 volunteers, half of whom will receive the traditional injected flu vaccine and half of whom will receive the intranasal vaccine. Volunteers will then be colonized with pneumococcal bacteria, and the researchers will measure immune responses and effects on the nasal microbiota.
Team leader Daniela Ferreira commented, “We are delighted that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has asked us to carry out this research, it is something that our unique model has made possible for the first time. The nasal flu vaccine is safe and effective in terms of influenza, but this study will enable us to understand how it interacts with existing bacteria carried in the nasopharynx and if that leads to further immunity or susceptibility to pneumonia.”
The grant was one of two announced recently by LSTM for projects related to its Experimental Human Pneumococcal Carriage (EHPC) model.
Read the LSTM press release.
