Site Visit to Imperial College London

The most striking thing about the research visit for me was when Professor Tang held the petri-dish up to the lab window to show us the tiny specks of live Men B bacteria. I remember looking at them and thinking, ‘Oh, so you’re what killed my daughter…’ It was a poignant moment for me, amazing to think such tiny dots can do so much harm and change your life forever.

The visit was really interesting and gave a great insight into the hard work going on to find a vaccine. It was a really useful experience and one that I value greatly. Thank you for organising it.

Jenny.

Pictures from our visit to Imperial College are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/meningitis/sets/72157620718126272/

Thanks for your post Liz; I’m really glad that you found the experience a positive one.

All of us at the Foundation also found the day really interesting. We began with a tour around the campus, and moved on to viewing the purpose-built pressurised labs for growing and manipulating the meningococcal bacteria.

Chris Tang then gave an overview of the disease, and his group took us on a tour of the other labs. This allowed us to see some of the techniques that the group use to research the disease in action, which was fascinating.

After lunch, Dr Vladimir Pelicic and Chris Tang both gave excellent talks on their projects at Imperial, funded by Meningitis Research Foundation.

The aim of both of these projects is to identify sites on the bacteria that a meningococcal B vaccine could target. This is a difficult task, due to the fact that meningococcal bacteria are very variable, so finding a part of the bacteria that is ‘conserved’ across all the strains is very hard. Also, the sugar coat of the meningococcus mimics parts of human nerve cells. Therefore, a potential vaccine needs to be based on a section of the bacteria that is not found anywhere in our bodies, to ensure that the vaccine does not provoke an immune response against our own cells.

The two projects are focussing on different candidates for vaccine research. Chris Tang’s is based on a harmless relation of the meningococcus, called ‘Neisseria lactamica’. His group have identified 20 lactamica strains that are closely related to the meningococcus. They are producing antibodies to these strains, and will then see how well these antibodies kill the meningococcus. This could lead to one or a number of the lactamica strains being identified as vaccine candidates.

Vladimir Pelicic’s project has identified a candidate in the form of ‘minor pilins’, which are a part of the hair-like structures that bacteria use to adhere to our nose and throat. The minor pilins he has identified so far are much more conserved than many other parts of the bacteria. His project will move on to testing whether targeting the pilins with a vaccine would kill a wide range of the bacteria.

Overall, we felt that the day went really well and would like to thank Chris, his lab group, Vladimir and all our members for their participation and enthusiasm!