Jenner_Institute
Jenner Institute
Vaccine research institute in Oxford
The Jenner Institute is a research institute on the Old Road Campus in Headington, east Oxford, England. It was formed in November 2005 through a partnership between the University of Oxford and the UK Institute for Animal Health.[2] It is associated with the Nuffield Department of Medicine, in the Medical Sciences Division of Oxford University. The institute receives charitable support from the Jenner Vaccine Foundation.[3][4]
The institute is led by Prof. Adrian Hill.[5] The institute develops vaccines and carries out clinical trials for diseases including malaria, tuberculosis (vaccine MVA85A), ebola, and MERS-Coronavirus.[6][7]
In 2020, the institute successfully developed the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, in a project backed by private companies including Oxford Sciences Innovation, Google Ventures, and Sequoia Capital, among others.[8] When developed, the UK government backed trials, purchased 100 million doses, and encouraged Oxford to work with AstraZeneca, a company based in Europe, instead of Merck & Co., a US-based company; while the US gave US$1.2bn of government funding in return for 300 million doses.[9][10] It collaborated with Italy's Advent Srl (part of the IRBM Group) on the development[11] and Germany's Merck Group on the manufacture of the COVID-19 vaccine.[3] Vaccinologist Dame Sarah Gilbert was one of the leading scientists involved in the development.[1][12]
The institute is named after the English physician and immunization pioneer Edward Jenner (1749–1823), who was a major contributor to the development of the smallpox vaccine.[citation needed]