Imperial College and Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare NHS Trust in London will be at the heart of vital worldwide research into vaccines to combat HIV.
The Trust will host a core laboratory, under the direction of Imperial College professor Frances Gotch, which will co-ordinate the evaluation of work from worldwide HIV/AIDS vaccine trials.
The laboratory is based at the St Stephen’s Centre, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, the largest HIV unit in Europe, caring for nearly 4,000 patients.
The laboratory is being supported by the now recruiting volunteers in London and Oxford.
Professor Frances Gotch, Professor of Immunology at Imperial College based at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. She said: "It is excellent that IAVI has decided to support a core laboratory at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.
"The urgency of the HIV epidemic demands that multiple vaccine designs are evaluated as soon as possible at many sites. Well validated and standardised modern technologies must be transferred to all vaccine sites and all evaluations need to be co-ordinated at a central site.
“Different people have had slightly different ways of testing vaccines. We will be working to standardize all the studies supported by IAVI. It is only by carrying out lots of Phase I studies of candidate vaccines, and by doing lots of comparative studies, that we can get the best vaccine and move things forward faster”.
"We are honoured to have been chosen and feel that we have the experience and attributes necessary to carry out the task. Imperial College and Chelsea and Westminster Healthcare have a strong history of being at the forefront of clinical trials in this area."