VALIDATE: A vaccine R&D Network for complex intracellular pathogens

正如COVID-19大流行所表明的那样，疫苗在控制传染病方面发挥着非常重要的作用。如果科学家们在世界各地共同努力，那么他们可以取得比单独工作更大的进步。VALIDATE是一个网络，旨在加快针对三类难以设计疫苗的细菌的疫苗开发，这些细菌在世界各地，特别是在低收入国家，造成大量疾病和死亡。这些疾病通常不会吸引大量的研究和开发资金，部分原因是它们主要影响无法支付昂贵疫苗的穷人。VALIDATE成立于2017年，从32个创始成员发展到现在在全球拥有500多个成员。在过去的五年里，我们支持了许多成员的职业发展，并资助了许多小型项目-其中一些项目已经导致MRC和其他全球资助者资助的更大的项目。我们现在希望获得未来四年的资金，以便我们能够继续支持疫苗研究和疫苗开发人员的职业生涯。我们选择的导致结核病（TB）等疾病的细菌群在身体对它们的反应方面是相似的。它们都非常善于躲避免疫系统-这意味着它们可以隐藏在体内并在以后的生活中引起疾病。它们也需要类似类型的免疫反应，以便身体能够摆脱它们。在这个网络中，我们将做两件事：1。为我们的成员提供少量资金进行研究，这将有助于我们了解如何最好地为这些困难的虫子开发疫苗。提供培训和支持性环境，鼓励年轻科学家继续在这一领域工作。我们将每年举行一次网络会议，我们的成员可以来展示他们的数据，并会见在该领域工作的其他科学家。我们将定期举办在线讲座，让更多的人参加，特别是来自低收入国家的人。我们将为年轻科学家提供在其他实验室接受培训的机会，并将提供指导，以支持年轻科学家的职业生涯。我们将与学校合作，增加对这些错误的了解。总的来说，在这个网络中，我们的目标是支持疫苗开发，并支持在这一领域工作的人的职业生涯。

As the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated, vaccines play a really important part in controlling infectious diseases. If scientists work together across the world, then greater progress can be made than if they work alone. VALIDATE is a network which aims to speed up vaccine development for three groups of bugs that are difficult to design vaccines for and which cause a lot of disease and death across the world, particularly in low income countries. These diseases often do not attract lots of research and development funding, in part because they primarily affect poor people who cannot pay for expensive vaccines. VALIDATE started in 2017 and has grown from 32 founding members to now having more than 500 members around the world. Over the last five years we have supported the career development of many of our members and have also funded many small projects - some of which have led on to much bigger projects being funded by the MRC and other global funders. We now want to secure funding for the next four years so we can carry on supporting vaccine research and the careers of people working in vaccine development. Our chosen groups of bugs, which cause diseases like tuberculosis (TB), are similar in how the body responds to them. They are all very good at hiding from the immune system - which means they can stay hidden in the body and cause disease much later in life. They also need similar types of immune responses for the body to be able to get rid of them. In this network, we will do two things:1. Provide small pots of funding for our members to perform research which will help us understand how best to develop vaccines for these difficult bugs.2. Provide training and a supportive environment to encourage young scientists to stay working in this field. We will have a network meeting every year where our members can come and present their data and meet other scientists working in the field. We will host regular talks, which will be online to allow more people to join, particularly from lower income countries. We will offer opportunities for young scientists to have training in other laboratories, and will provide mentoring to support young scientists in their careers. We will work with schools to increase knowledge of these bugs. Overall, in this network, we aim to support vaccine development and also support the careers of people working in this field.