Oxford University’s Ineos Oxford Institute (IOI) has been granted a £5 million Wellcome Discovery Award to develop a vaccine for livestock that is effective against Campylobacter, the pathogen behind most foodborne illness in the UK and the leading bacterial cause of diarrhea globally.

According to Oxford, the project aims to address the issue of diarrheal disease, which is responsible for the deaths of approximately 444,000 children every year, and disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Pathogens that cause enteric disease, like Campylobacter, are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics, leading necessitating the development of vaccines as an alternate line of defense.

The project will be led by Samuel Sheppard, Ph.D., Oxford University Professor of Microbial Genomics and Evolution, and Principal Investigator of IOI’s Digital Microbiology Program. His work will go beyond the development of a vaccine; with the help of nine co-principal investigators from African countries, and leveraging a network spanning 19 nations, Dr. Sheppard aims to establish a global genomic surveillance hub to monitor the spread of diarrheal diseases.

By creating a framework for metagenomic epidemiology surveillance, Dr. Sheppard and his international collaborators will monitor and track the spread of enteric diseases through genetic analysis of pathogens. The team will analyze Campylobacter isolates from human clinical cases and farms, the genetic data generated from which will be used to develop a vaccine for livestock that can prevent the spread of the bacteria to humans. Industry partners will support the research by conducting large-scale protein screening to investigate antibody responses in bacterial samples, helping scientists identify optimal vaccine targets and informing the development of a glycoconjugate vaccine (which combines sugar and protein molecules to enhance immune response).

Research has already begun in Gambia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Peru. The £5 million in new funding will help the team expand their work across Africa, where local partners will collect pathogen samples from clinical patients, wild and domestic animals, meat sold at retail, and the environment.

After the vaccine is developed, Dr. Sheppard intends to monitor the effectiveness of the vaccine and optimize vaccine delivery to ensure its successful adoption, especially in LMICs. He also hopes that the countries taking part in the project will continue to use the global genomic surveillance framework, and that the established infrastructure and techniques will be used after completion of Dr. Sheppard’s work for further metagenomic analysis and vaccine development.

Joining Dr. Sheppard and the University of Oxford in the project are researchers from the Centre Suisse de Recherche Scientifique, Cote d’Ivoire; the Medical Research Council Unit, Gambia; the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK; and the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research.