A research partnership between Emory University and the University of Queensland (UQ) aims to accelerate the development and delivery of vaccines to help address the world’s most critical health challenges.
Established through a $32 million partnership, the Queensland Emory Vaccine Centre (QEVC) will bring together UQ and Emory researchers, along with industry partners such as global pharmaceutical company Sanofi, in a state-of-the-art laboratory designed to fast-track the translation of vaccines into viable treatments.
The new initiative builds on a longstanding collaboration in drug discovery between the two institutions that was initially formed in 2012 with the creation of the Queensland Emory Development Alliance.
“The QEVC combines the strengths of the Emory Vaccine Center, a world leader in discovery, development, and clinical analysis of safe and affordable vaccines, with exceptional partners at UQ and across Queensland,” says Ravi Thadhani, MD, executive vice president for health affairs at Emory University and executive director of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center. “QEVC will address global vaccine needs, create innovative platforms and help address pandemic threats.”
The partnership was announced during a visit at UQ attended by Thadhani, Rafi Ahmed, PhD, director of the Emory Vaccine Center, Mehul Suthar, PhD associator professor in the Department of Pediatrics, and David Stephens, vice president for research at Woodruff Health Sciences Center.
UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor Deborah Terry AC believes the partnership can have a major impact on the global biomedical industry.
“Other research institutions and the biotech sector will also be able to take advantage of the new facilities and work with the wider vaccine research and development community built on the Emory and UQ partnership,” she says. “The focus will be to ensure a robust pipeline of vaccines and therapeutics moving from discovery to commercialization – quite simply getting more vaccines from the lab to the communities that need them.”
The QEVC will be physically based at UQ's St. Lucia campus and will house more than 80 researchers. The initiative is supported by the Queensland government’s Industry Partnership Program.