Meningitis genome research and Hertford

9 September 2012

Professor Martin Maiden and a Hertford DPhil student, Dorothea Hill, are working on the world’s first meningococcus genome library, a major step forward for vaccine development, which has been funded by the Meningitus Research Foundation.

The online library will contain whole genome sequence data, or the complete genetic blueprint, for every meningococcal bacterium that caused disease in England, Wales and Northern Ireland between summer 2010 and summer 2011. The meningococcus is one of the major causes of meningitis and septicaemia world-wide and the library will give researchers unique access to information that will help them develop vaccines to coves all strains of this dangerous microbe. It will also enable investigation into vaccine escape – when the meningococcus changes its surface structure to trick our immune systems.

In recent years, the genome sequence has been used as a starting block for developing novel vaccines, including the most advanced MenB vaccine candidate so far. However, a single bacterial genome was the starting point for developing this vaccine. Since no single strain predominates in patients, who are infected with any of a multiplicity of strains, whenever a promising vaccine candidate is identified, it is essential to determine how widely it covers all disease-causing bacteria. The online library will help achieve that aim. These results will represent a landmark in terms of the application of sequencing technology on a national scale to an important human pathogen.

There is certainly nothing remotely on this scale in the field of meningococcal or for other bacterial pathogens currently available. [Professor Martin Maiden]