Would you like to be involved in research?
We are looking for health professionals/clinics in the London area who are involved in administering travel vaccines – in particular the yellow fever vaccine. Clinics would identify suitable patient volunteers, take consent, administer the yellow fever vaccine in isolation and take blood samples before and 7 ,14, 28 days after vaccination. Samples would be collected by courier, tubes and packaging provided. Patient volunteers would have their remaining travel vaccines after the 28 day blood donation.
We are a research group at King’s College London investigating the possible mechanisms behind age-related immune system changes, concentrating on B cell/Antibody responses. The older immune system is not as effective as it is in our younger years. Vaccine responses are poor and susceptibility to infectious disease/cancer/autoimmune disease is increased. We would like to study the older immune response using a vaccine for a pathogen that is non-endemic in the UK in order to look at the primary immune response and for this reason we will be looking at UK travellers who will be having the yellow fever vaccine. We are recruiting volunteers for our study and would be very good to have your help with recruitment and sample collection. Our aim is to recruit individuals in the age range 18 to 40, and (in particular) over 55. Blood samples are taken before vaccination and at 7, 14 and 28 days after vaccine. The vaccine is being administered free of charge to those that are participating in the study. Exclusion criteria include prior vaccination with the yellow fever vaccine, diseases or disorders of the immune system, infection within the last month, medication affecting the immune system. The study has full ethical approval (REC#14/LO/1221) and is funded by the MRC/BBSRC. For further details please contact Dr. Joselli Silva O’Hare, Department of Immunobiology, King’s College London, Guy’s Hospital, London SE19RT, email: joselli.santos_silva@kcl.ac.uk or deborah.dunn-walters@kcl.ac.uk. You can also find out more about our research at http://www.bcell.org.uk/index.html