IMPRINT: IMmunising PRegnant women and INfants neTwork

太多的新生儿继续在早期死亡，特别是在低收入和中等收入国家。许多人死于感染，其中一些是可以预防的。在怀孕后期，抗体通过胎盘从母亲传给孩子，为生命最初几周的婴儿提供保护。然而，如果母亲对某些感染没有足够的保护，婴儿也将得不到保护。为怀孕妇女接种疫苗可以提高母亲体内的抗体水平，从而保护母亲，并增加通过胎盘转移的抗体数量--也保护婴儿免于出生。这一概念已经成功地用于预防破伤风、流感和百日咳(百日咳)。许多研究人员和利益相关者都有兴趣使用这一策略来保护婴儿免受其他严重感染，如B组链球菌或呼吸道合胞病毒(RSV)，针对这些感染的疫苗正在开发中。关于孕期和新生儿对疫苗的免疫反应，我们在认识上仍然存在一些根本性的差距，这是我们必须解决的问题，以便加快开发新疫苗。同样重要的是，科学界应研究如何最好地在高收入国家和低收入国家实施这类疫苗方案。我们独特的跨学科网络代表了基础科学、免疫学、疫苗学、社会科学、工业、公共卫生以及国家和国际政策制定者的利益相关者，他们聚集在一起，以应对在怀孕和新生儿中最好地使用疫苗方面的关键挑战，并从长远来看，改善孕产妇和新生儿的健康。具体地说，Imprint网络将实施合作研究项目，以回答抗体通过胎盘转移的基本生物学问题，如何诱导“最佳”抗体，以及它对成熟的新生儿免疫系统的影响。我们将调查母体疫苗是否会干扰婴儿在婴儿期和儿童期对疫苗的反应方式，以确保保护在任何阶段都不会受到影响。营养或其他感染等辅助因素也可能改变母亲和婴儿受到疫苗保护的方式。因此，如果我们要确保在孕期和早期对疫苗进行最佳保护，我们就需要考虑到这些因素。我们还将找出为什么妇女决定在不同的国家接种或不接种疫苗，以优化现有和新疫苗的接种。鉴于不同国家的医疗保健制度不同，我们将努力研究如何最好地监测疫苗的安全性和有效性。应对这些执行挑战将使我们能够更好地了解印迹调查员工作的许多地理区域和人口中的问题和现场准备情况。Imprint是一个多学科网络，将欧洲、非洲和亚洲的调查人员联系在一起，因此可以全面解决这些问题。我们是独一无二的，旨在通过我们的合作提供多样化的专业知识、可用的样本和数据集来调查这些挑战，成员们很乐意分享这些信息。通过我们的网络，我们将培训LMIC的研究人员解决这些重要问题，我们将成为为孕妇和新生儿安全有效地使用疫苗提供最佳证据的论坛，以实现降低孕产妇和新生儿感染死亡的最终目标。

Far too many newborns continue to die in early life, particularly in low-and middle income countries (LMIC). Many die from infections, some of which could be prevented. During the late stages of pregnancy, antibody is transferred across the placenta from mother to child, providing protection to the infant in the early weeks of life. However, if the mother has insufficient protection against certain infections, the infant will also not be protected. Vaccinating women in pregnancy can enhance the level of antibody in the mother, thereby protecting the mother, and increasing the amount of antibody transferred across the placenta - protecting the infant from birth too. This concept has already been successfully established for the prevention of tetanus, influenza and pertussis (whooping cough). Many investigators and stakeholders are interested in using this strategy to protect infants from other serious infections, for example group B streptococcus or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and vaccines against these infections are in development. Some fundamental gaps in our understanding remain about the immune response to vaccines in pregnancy and in newborn infants which are essential for us to address in order to accelerate development of new vaccines. It is also very important that the scientific community tackles how best to implement such vaccine programmes in both high-income countries and LMIC. Our unique inter-disciplinary network represents stakeholders from basic science, immunology, vaccinology, social sciences, industry, public health and national and international policy makers who have come together in order to tackle the key challenges in the best use of vaccines in pregnancy and in newborns, and in the long term, improve maternal and newborn health. Specifically, the IMPRINT network will implement collaborative research projects to answer fundamental biological questions about antibody transfer of antibody across the placenta, how to induce the "best" antibody, and its effect on the maturing newborn immune system. We will investigate if maternal vaccines interfere with the way in which the baby responds to vaccines later in infancy and childhood, to ensure that protection is not compromised at any stage. Co-factors such as nutrition or other infections might also change the way in which mothers and infants are protected by vaccines. Hence we need to take them into consideration if we are to ensure optimal protection of vaccines in pregnancy and early life. We will also find out why women decide to receive or not to accept vaccines in different countries in order to optimise the uptake of current and new vaccines. We will endeavour to work out how vaccine safety and effectiveness can be best monitored, given the different health care systems in different countries. Addressing these implementation challenges will enable us to better understand the issues and site-preparedness in the many geographical areas and populations in which IMPRINT investigators work. IMPRINT is a multi-disciplinary network linking investigators in Europe, Africa and Asia and can therefore address these questions comprehensively. We are uniquely set up to investigate these challenges through the diversity of expertise, availability of samples and datasets already available through our collaboration, which the members are happy to share. Through our network, we will train researchers in LMIC to take forward these important questions, and we will be the forum to provide the best evidence for the safe and efficient use of vaccines in pregnancy and newborns for the ultimate goal of lowering maternal and newborn deaths from infections.