A proposed groundbreaking study that will see participants infected with hepatitis C – and treated – has secured more than £1million in funding. The study will help pave the way for future testing of hepatitis C vaccine candidates.
The £1,098,103 funding from the research and grant-making foundation Open Philanthropy will support researchers at the University of Oxford, Imperial College London and Ghent University in carrying out the trial.
The study is endorsed by 1Day Sooner, a non-profit organisation that represents the interests of volunteers in high-impact, high-burden infectious disease research, including controlled human infection studies.
1Day Sooner says it is strongly supportive of proposals for a hepatitis C controlled human infection model (CHIM, also called a human challenge model). Hundreds of people worldwide who have learned about the prospect of a future hepatitis C CHIM study have signed up with 1Day Sooner expressing their interest in potentially participating.
Since 1980, more than 15,000 carefully screened and informed adults have been infected in CHIMs involving over two dozen diseases. The safety record is very strong and the scientific value has been enormous. Even so, no CHIM has ever been carried out for hepatitis C, a disease that is fully treatable but lacks a much-needed vaccine.
Over the course of decades, the hepatitis C virus (HCV) damages the liver, which can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer and even liver failure. Tens of millions of people worldwide have the disease, including tens of thousands of people in the UK.
Because hepatitis C can be reliably and safely treated, and because of the difficulties testing hepatitis C vaccine candidates in early stages, experts increasingly believe that CHIMs will be necessary to develop hepatitis C vaccines.
The University of Oxford’s Professor Eleanor Barnes,the lead scientist designing the hepatitis C CHIM in the UK, said: “There is an enormous, coordinated effort currently to develop an effective vaccine in recognition of the ongoing severe harms of hepatitis C globally.
“Without an effective human challenge model, there will be no way to select the most promising HCV vaccines to move forward. The investigators have carefully agreed a pathway to the HCV CHIM through international workshops and publications over several years – this generous grant from OP will allow us to progress further.”
Professor Barnes’s work to develop a hepatitis C vaccine is supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).
Dr Harvey Alter, 2020 Nobel Laureate and co-discoverer of the hepatitis C virus, said: “I believe a hepatitis C human challenge model is our best shot at developing a vaccine in the near future. Such a model is possible because current hepatitis C treatments are so highly effective.”