The European Network of Vaccine Research and Development (TRANSVAC) has published the next Call for EC-funded Vaccine Development Services (http://www.transvac.org/)

About: In order to support and accelerate vaccine development in Europe, the TRANSVAC is providing a vaccine development platform that may be accessed for free by innovative European groups.

TRANSVAC activities are:

· Research - improving the use of assays, adjuvants, animal models, standardised reagents, microarrays and protein expression in relation to the development of experimental vaccines.

· Networking - providing training in vaccine development, harmonising assays, and harmonising microarrays

· Services - providing researchers with free access to: adjuvant formulation, animal models, standards and global analysis (microarray analysis).

Mechanism: Through a peer-reviewed competitive process, European groups working in vaccine development may apply to benefit from the expertise, reagents, and facilities of the TRANSVAC (The TRANSVAC services).

These services are not restricted to any disease in particular. Only European user groups (from EU Members states or Associated states) can apply and only to TRANSVAC service infrastructures outside their own country

TRANSVAC’s free-of-charge high-quality services, which the current call addresses, include: Access to adjuvants: External groups can send antigens that will be returned formulated with the required adjuvants Animal models: External groups can test their experimental vaccines/antigens in mouse, pig, and non-human primate models Standards: External groups can receive standardised reagents for application in several commonly-used assays Global analysis: External groups can send samples that will be analysed using Affymetrix/Agilent microarrays or Illumina deep sequencing platforms.

These services are offered by some of Europe’s finest vaccine development labs, e.g. The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (GER), The Jenner Institute of Oxford University (UK), Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology (GER), the Health Protection Agency (UK), and others. EC funding allows TRANSVAC to provide these services.

Application

Application forms may be downloaded from the TRANSVAC website (http://www.transvac.org/free-services/apply-now) and once completed will be reviewed by the TRANSVAC Scientific Advisory Committee and User Selection Panel, before approval by the TRANSVAC Steering Committee.

The selected projects will then be able to commence work within TRANSVAC shortly after notification.

Timeline: The call will remain open for the duration of the project (until Sept 2013) or until all of the services have been exhausted. The next cut-off date is April 30, 2011.