51³Ô¹ÏÍø

51³Ô¹ÏÍø researchers have secured £12.7 million in funding from the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), to develop new ways to protect people from respiratory viruses.

The projects form part of , a £57 million initiative to develop a new class of medicines known as sustained innate immunoprophylactics (SIIPs). These approaches aim to provide durable, broad-spectrum protection against respiratory viruses by engineering the innate immune system. 

Our researchers are involved in three of the 11 funded teams, working with collaborators in the UK and internationally. 

Understanding viral resilience 

Respiratory viruses infect millions of people each year, yet some individuals remain uninfected despite repeated exposure. A £7.5 million project led by Professor Ajit Lalvani, Chair of Infectious Diseases at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø’s National Heart and Lung Institute, aims to identify the immune processes behind this protection and use these insights to develop new approaches to preventing respiratory disease.

The researchers will study people naturally exposed to respiratory viruses in the community, alongside volunteers in controlled viral challenge studies led by Professor Chris Chiu and Dr Aran Singanayagam in the Department of Infectious Disease. By comparing those who resist infection with those who become infected, the team hopes to identify immune signatures associated with protection.  

Airway cells from infected and resistant participants will be exposed to viruses under controlled laboratory conditions, in collaboration with Dr Claire Smith and Professor Marko Nikolic from UCL. This will allow researchers to test and validate the biological pathways that may prevent infection before it becomes established and use artificial intelligence and mathematical modelling to predict how therapies could induce these protective responses in everyone, including those who do not naturally develop them. 

Professor Ajit Lalvani said, “A key unanswered question in respiratory infection is why some people resist infection despite repeated exposure, while others go on to develop disease. Through this project, and by harnessing our discoveries during the pandemic, we can directly interrogate the immune mechanisms that prevent infection before it becomes established. In line with ARIA’s bold vision, we will then use these insights to help accelerate the development of new, broadly protective preventative approaches.” 

Towards a universal vaccine 

Department of Infectious Disease scientists Professor Chris Chiu, Dr Aran Singanayagam and Professor Wendy Barclay are co-investigators supporting another programme of work which is led by Professor Bali Pulendran at Stanford University toward development of the next generation of vaccines which transcend pathogen boundaries. 

Recent studies have shown that mice immunised with the BCG vaccine were protected for several weeks against infection with unrelated viruses such as SARS-CoV-2, SARS and seasonal flu. Using this knowledge, the scientists in this project are hoping to develop and test the first prototype of a universal vaccine which can cover multiple viral strains. 

The preclinical discovery phase of this research will occur at Stanford University in mice. The second part of the project will be delivered as a Phase 1 trial, followed by a Phase 2a controlled human infection through our human challenge studies at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø.

Professor Chris Chiu, Professor of Infectious Diseases, said of both projects: “Our collaborations with Stanford University and within 51³Ô¹ÏÍø will transform understanding of human innate immunity to respiratory viral infection. The “universal vaccine” has shown great promise in mice and, if successful, will show our ability to rapidly translate discoveries in the lab to impact in people, accelerating the development of next-generation needle-free vaccines. Our human challenge studies are key in allowing us to study dynamic changes in the immune system that occur even before noticeable symptoms and cannot easily be measured in community infection. These studies, while prioritising the highest quality of medical care of study participants throughout, will help us rapidly identify and safely evaluate new vaccines and treatments.” 

Dr Aran Singanayagam, Clinical Associate Professor in Respiratory Infection said: “Respiratory viruses are a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide and we urgently need more effective ways of preventing and treating these infections. Vaccine development usually targets the adaptive or ‘memory’ response against specific individual viruses such as influenza or Sars-COV2. This project aims to take a different approach by testing a method of boosting the innate immune system (the body’s first-line defence against all viruses). If successful, this approach could offer a broad and powerful protection against all commonly encountered viruses.” 

Modelling the impact of new antiviral preventative medicines  

IMPACT-SIIP is a translational modelling project that aims to create a digital roadmap for a pioneering class of medicines. The £1 million project will be led by Dr Lilith Whittles, Assistant Professor in the School of Public Health. 

Sustained Innate Immuno-Prophylactics (SIIPs)  aim to provide months-long protection against a wide range of respiratory viruses by sculpting the body’s early innate immune response. As this is a new approach, there is significant uncertainty regarding how a change in early immunity might impact clinical symptoms, the spread of viruses or even how these viruses evolve over time. The project addresses these unknowns by building mathematical models that connect the biological mechanisms of potential future SIIPs to real-world outcomes that are important to medical professionals, regulators and patients. 

The project is structured into three integrated phases: building models to map how SIIPs could affect viral growth within a person’s body and how infectious they are to others, scaling these into population-level models which predict broader epidemiological and economic impacts, and finally integrating these results into an open-source toolkit to inform clinical trial design, and design use-case scenarios.  

One of the primary objectives is to identify how different product profiles translate into population-level epidemiological outcomes, helping define promising product targets and deployment use-cases early in the development process. Ultimately, the project aims to provide a robust, evidence-based framework that not only supports the arrival of SIIPs but also remains flexible enough to be adapted for future viral threats. 

Following the announcement of the funding, Dr Lilith Whittles said: "SIIPs present a potentially game-changing opportunity to protect people from respiratory viruses, but as with any new class of medicines against infectious disease, we need to understand not just whether they work in individuals, but how they might shape infection patterns. Our modelling will allow us to anticipate how individual-level protection from SIIPs could translate into public health outcomes, helping to focus lab research, design smarter trials, and inform regulators.”