The Anonymous Widower

What Will Oxford Do For An Encore?

In the UK, I suspect nearly all of us have watched in admiration, as Oxford University have developed a Covid-19 vaccine for the world.

So what will be the University’s next big medical breakthrough.

Antibiotics

Today, this article on the BBC web site, which is entitled Oxford Research Tackles Threat Of Antibiotic Resistance, was published.

This was the introductory sub-heading.

Oxford University is opening a new research institute dedicated to tackling resistance to antibiotics.

To start the funding INEOS has chipped in a cool £100 million.

This paragraph summarises the project.

There will be 50 researchers working in the new Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Resistance, addressing the “over-use and mis-use” of antibiotics, which the university warned could cause 10 million excess deaths per year by 2050.

To put that ten million excess deaths into perspective, the Covid-19 pandemic has so far killed 2.05 million worldwide.

It should be remembered that David Cameron warned of this problem back in 2014, as was reported in this article on the BBC, which was entitled Antibiotic Resistance: Cameron Warns Of Medical ‘Dark Ages‘.

This was the introductory paragraph.

The world could soon be “cast back into the dark ages of medicine” unless action is taken to tackle the growing threat of resistance to antibiotics, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.

Will the Ineos Oxford Institute for Antimicrobial Resistance, solve one of the most pressing problems facing the modern world?

Malaria Vaccine

Sometime, this week I either read in The Times or heard someone say on the BBC, that Oxford would soon be starting trials for a malaria vaccine developed by the same team, who developed the AstraZeneca vaccine for Covid-19.

This wasn’t the article in The Times, that I read, as it is dated the 5th of December 2020, but it does have a title of Malaria Vaccine Another Success Story For Jenner Institute Team Behind Covid Jab.

This is the first three paragraphs.

The Oxford team behind the coronavirus jab has taken a big step towards producing a cheap and effective vaccine for malaria.

The Jenner Institute said that it was due to enter the final stage of human trials with its vaccine, which it hopes could combat the almost half a million annual deaths, mainly in children.

“It’s going to be available in very large amounts — it works pretty well. And it’s going to be very low-priced,” Adrian Hill, director of the institute, said.

This looks to me, exactly what the world needs.

I’ve also found this page on the Oxford University web site, which is entitled Designer Malaria Vaccines.

This is the first two paragraphs on the page.

Malaria is one of the deadliest human diseases, killing a child in Africa every two minutes. A vaccine is urgently needed, but this is has proved extremely challenging because the malaria parasite is a master of disguise, able to change its surface coat to escape detection by the human body. However, structural biology is raising hopes for a vaccine against this killer parasite.

In order to replicate and develop, the malaria parasite must get inside human red blood cells – something that depends upon a malaria protein called RH5. Unlike the other variable malaria surface proteins, RH5 does not vary, making it more easily recognised and destroyed.

There is also this YouTube video.

From the video it looks like Oxford have used the Diamond Light Source to help develop the vaccine, just as the facility has been used to investigate Covid-19, as I wrote about in The Diamond Light Source And COVID-19.

I have added a new page called The Diamond Light Source And Malaria, which points to information on the Diamond Light web site.

There is also this Saturday Interview in The Times with Professor Adrian Hill, who is the Director of the Jenner Institute, at the University of Oxford.

This is the first two paragraphs.

Adrian Hill knew that this would be a big year. As head of Oxford’s Jenner Institute, this was the year, if all went well, he would announce a final large-scale trial into a vaccine to prevent a disease that was ravaging swathes of the planet. And this week, he did just that. Just not for the disease you’re thinking of.

A century after scientific research on the topic began, 30 years after he started working on it and eight years after this version was tried he has, he believes, an effective malaria vaccine. Now he is ready to try it at scale.

The interview is a must-read.

This paragraph from the article compares Covid-19 and malaria.

In the past 20 years, conventional public health investment has averted an estimated 1.5 billion malaria cases. Still, in an ordinary year it is one of the world’s biggest killers of children. “Malaria is a public health emergency. A lot more people will die in Africa this year from malaria than will die from Covid,” he says. “I don’t mean twice as many — probably ten times.”

The numbers show why a vaccine for malaria is so important.

Conclusion

Oxford University appears to have tremendous ambition, to see both these projects through to a successful conclusion.

I believe that their success with the Covid-19 vaccine will have major effects.

• People like Jim Ratcliffe and Bill and Melinda Gates, drug companies and charities like Wellcome Trust, will be prepared to fund more research.
• World-class researchers from all over the world will be drawn to work on Oxford’s projects.
• If Oxford or another group needs another powerful research tool, like the Diamond Light Source, the government will look favourably at the project.

People love to support winners! Just look at how kids follow the football team, at the top of the Premier League, when they first get interested in the game.

If the AstraZeneca vaccine is a success in the poorer countries of this world, that can’t afford the more expensive commercial vaccines, that this could change the world in bigger ways, than anybody imagines.

It could be extremely good not just for AstraZeneca, Oxford University and the UK, but the whole world. And not just in 2021, but in the future as well!

January 19, 2021 Posted by AnonW | Health | AstraZeneca, COVID-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Diamond Light Source, INEOS, Malaria, Oxford University, Research | 1 Comment