Active Infection & Immunity Digestion, Kidneys & Other Organs

Characterization of immune correlates following Rift Valley fever virus infection or vaccination

Funder Wellcome Charity-funded
Associated organisations Emory University · Ifakara Health Institute Europe PMC affiliations are not treated as award recipients or mapped locations.
Funding £4.6M
Period Aug 2025 — Aug 2028

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A single blood test could reveal whether a person is protected against Rift Valley fever virus, a mosquito-borne disease that devastates livestock and causes severe illness in people across Africa. The problem is that no one knows exactly which immune responses actually prevent infection or disease. Current vaccines exist, but developers lack a clear biological marker—an "immune correlate of protection"—to prove a vaccine works without waiting for natural outbreaks. This gap forces costly, large-scale field trials and slows vaccine licensure. The researchers will analyse blood samples from a Tanzanian vaccine trial, using specialised assays that measure how antibodies recruit immune cells to kill the virus. They will then transfer these human antibodies into animals to see which ones prevent liver or brain disease. High-dimensional bioinformatics will link specific immune signatures to protection. If successful, this work could establish a benchmark for vaccine efficacy, allowing regulators to license new Rift Valley fever vaccines based on human immune responses alone, without requiring massive outbreak studies. This would accelerate access to vaccines for both people and livestock in endemic regions, where the virus threatens food security and public health.

View original technical description
Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is an arbovirus of clinical and agricultural relevance found throughout Africa. Our consortium is currently supported by CEPI to conduct baseline sero-epidemiology studies of RVFV and Phase I/II clinical trials of DDVax, a live attenuated RVFV vaccine in Tanzania. While the primary goals of these trials are clearly safety and immunogenicity, there will be vaccinated and control cohorts in an area that is endemic for RVFV; this provides a unique opportunity to identify exposures/infections as they occur over time in these cohorts and make direct immunologic comparisons between the groups. Longitudinal serum samples from these cohorts will be tested using a series of humoral assays, including virus associated Fc mediated activity assays that our group will develop and optimize. Serum samples from clinical trial participants will be used for dose-down passive transfer studies in relevant animal models to define mechanistic immune correlates of protection from RVFV hepatitis or encephalitis; these data could be useful for immunobridging from animal model protection data to human immunogenicity if needed for licensure. All immunologic and outcome data from human participants and animal studies will be subjected to high-dimensional bioinformatic analysis to identify immunologic correlates of protection from RVFV.

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Researchers

Anita McElroy (EPMC Awardee)Maxmillian Mpina (EPMC Awardee)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Development of effective rift valley fever vaccines for use in sheep and humans.
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Structural basis for innate immune suppression by Rift Valley fever phlebovirus
Bunyavirus Immunity Consortium: Delineating the immune response against CCHFV and other Nairoviruses to aid effective vaccine design
Host genetic determinants of rotavirus disease and immunity in African children

Original classification

Identifying correlates of protection to support vaccine development

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