Quest for saving millions
Bangladesh-origin Briton in the team of scientists makinguniversal vaccine for all types of influenzas
Reaz Ahmad
Scientists in the United Kingdom who have made a recent breakthrough in developing a universal vaccine to fight all forms of influenzas have a Bangladesh-origin Briton, Shaima Begom, in their team.
Shaima works at the Respiratory Infections Section of the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College London under the tutelage of Prof Ajit Lalvani.
In exclusive email interviews with The Daily Star both Prof Ajit and Shaima explained how their research in the last four years had brightened the prospect of developing a universal vaccine that would safeguard people from every form of flu attacks.
Prof Ajit and his team started the research during the 2009 swine flu pandemic and have just come up with a blueprint for developing a universal flu vaccine. A report on their study findings was published in the Nature Medicine journal in September attracting wide attention of the global medical fraternity.
Seasonal flu vaccines rapidly become useless and new ones are needed every year as the influenza virus is a constantly shifting target.
The prize of the outcome of Ajit-Shaima team could be huge. Seasonal flu kills between 2,50,000 and 5,00,000 people every year and new pandemics have the potential to take doctors by surprise and kill large number of people.
In Ajit’s words, “New strains of flu are continuously emerging, some of which are deadly, and so we need to create a universal vaccine that would be effective against all strains of flu.”
Prof Ajit, who is also the chair of the Infectious Diseases and Founding Director of the Tuberculosis Research Centre of Imperial College, narrated that his team had recruited 342 staff and students at Imperial College London to take part in the flu study in 2009.
The goal was to determine why some people seem to resist severe illness when exposed to flu bugs. Ajit and his team discovered that people who caught the flu but had only mild or no symptoms had more CD8 T-cells — a type of virus-killing immune cell — in their blood at the start of the pandemic.
Now Ajit, Shaima and other team members believe a vaccine that stimulates the body to produce more CD8 T-cells could be an effective way to fight flu viruses, including new strains that cross over into people from birds and pigs.
Prof Ajit told The Daily Star, “The volunteers [342 staff and students] were asked to donate blood samples and report any symptoms they experienced over the next two flu seasons. Our study found that people who fell more severely ill with flu had fewer CD8 T-cells in their blood at the start of the pandemic, and those who caught flu but had no symptoms or only mild symptoms had more of these CD8 T-cells.”
He went on, “Our findings suggest that by making the body produce more of this specific type of CD8 T-cells, you can protect people against symptomatic illness. This provides the blueprint for developing a universal flu vaccine.
“We already know how to stimulate the immune system to make CD8 T-cells by vaccination. Now that we know these T-cells may protect, we can design a vaccine to prevent people from getting symptoms and transmitting infection to others. This could curb seasonal flu annually and protect people against future pandemics.”
He said the problem with the existing vaccine efforts was that it was always one step behind the evolving virus and so vaccines must be updated every season to match circulating strains.
“The solution to this problem would be a universal flu vaccine effective against all strains of flu.”
Asked how long it might take them to come up with a universal flu vaccine, Prof Ajit could not offer a specific timeline, rather said, “This could be possible within the next few years. The vaccine would be tested in human clinical trials first before being made available for use in the general public.”
Shaima Begom, who started working in Prof Ajit’s lab in April 2010, told this correspondent, “I initially worked on a six-month project on the flu study as part of my research masters at Imperial College London. Since I enjoyed the project, I decided to continue the work for my PhD. It’s been a great learning experience and the flu study was a very unique and exciting project to be involved in.”
Shaima, eldest among four siblings and daughter of a businessman, hails from Sylhet. She spoke highly about her supervisors and co-members in the flu study team — Dr Saranya Sridhar, a post-doctoral scientist in the lab, and Prof Ajit.
In her words, “My supervisors are very talented and inspiring individuals who have designed the flu study. Dr Sridhar and I work very closely together on the project, especially the lab experiments and data analysis, so it’s been very much a team effort.”
Praising the role played by his teammates, Prof Ajit, a Sikh by religious practice, also referred to the very fact that his colleagues in the flu research had also brought along a sort of ethno-religious diversity (Shaima being a Muslim and Sridhar a Hindu) that contributed immensely to creating an inter-faith ambiance at their workplace.
Shaima added, “I think women from the Bangladeshi community are a minority within science and academia. I think it’s very important that girls who are interested and want to pursue science and research are encouraged and supported by their families. My family has been a tremendous support and I thank God for blessing me with such a supportive family who unconditionally understand the time that I have to dedicate to my studies and research.”
Shaima, who got first class in BSc (Honours) in biomedical science and completed her master’s with distinction in biomedical research, both from the Imperial College and now pursuing a PhD, expressed her willingness to work in Bangladesh in future.
“Actually, my father is very patriotic and his hardworking ethos and medical donation work in Bangladesh have been constant inspirations to me to pursue something worthwhile through which I can even in some small way, help our community in Bangladesh in future,” said Shaima, married off to a London Metropolitan Police service official last year.
