CEPI announced in October 2024 that the Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota is to receive US$3.2 million to advance its open access Coronavirus Vaccines Research and Development (R&D) Roadmap. This is an “important tool created to guide the development of vaccines” against multiple coronaviruses. CIDRAP will monitor and evaluate R&D progress and “catalyse efforts” to develop broadly protective vaccines. The investment from CEPI will monitor progress towards the roadmap goals and milestones and enable the creation of an online database of current literature and reports on coronavirus vaccine research.
The CIDRAP roadmap
CIDRAP’s roadmap is developed with guidance from over 50 scientific leaders and financial support from The Rockefeller and Gates Foundations. It aims to respond to the threat of coronaviruses, highlighted in the experience of three new coronavirus epidemics (SARS, MERS, COVID-19) in just 20 years. Coronaviruses are a “real and present threat” that demand a “large, comprehensive, and coordinated” initiative.
“The ultimate goal of developing broadly protective coronavirus vaccines is therefore multi-faceted: to create more efficacious and durable COVID-19 vaccines, mitigate the potential threat of future coronaviruses that have not yet emerged, and, ideally, prevent infections and transmission.”
The roadmap covers five topic areas each with “key barriers and knowledge gaps” and corresponding “technical milestones for measuring success”:
- Virology applicable to vaccine R&D
- Immunology and immune correlates of protection
- Vaccinology
- Animal and human infection models for coronavirus vaccine research
- Policy and financing
CEPI’s support
The funding contributes to monitoring progress on these goals and milestones and supports an open access online research database as well as an open access online summary of all broadly protective coronavirus vaccines in preclinical and clinical development and a dashboard tracking funding and investment.
Dr Michael Osterholm, Regents Professor and Director of CIDRAP recognised CEPI’s contribution to coronavirus vaccine research and development.
“CEPI’s support and collaboration with CIDRAP will fast forward our efforts at creating broadly protective coronavirus vaccines.”
Dr Kent Kester, Executive Director of Vaccine R&D, CEPI, commented that COVID-19 was the “third new coronavirus to strike in the past 20 years, portending the emergence of further novel coronaviruses”.
“Having the latest information on vaccine research and progress within coronavirus vaccine R&D readily and openly available in CIDRAP’s roadmap will enhance the approach being pursued by CEPI and other scientific investigators around the world to develop vaccines that could confer protection against multiple coronaviruses at the same time.”
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