{"id":140,"date":"2014-06-06T15:14:04","date_gmt":"2014-06-06T15:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/?p=140"},"modified":"2014-06-06T15:24:50","modified_gmt":"2014-06-06T15:24:50","slug":"ba2-the-vaccine-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/on-parade\/2014\/06\/06\/ba2-the-vaccine-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"BA2: The vaccine challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BA2<\/a>More than 2.5 million children under five die every year from diseases that could be prevented by vaccination. Now one researcher from our Department of Chemistry thinks she may have found a solution to the long-standing challenge\u00a0of transporting and storing vaccines without refrigeration. Andrew Dunne finds out more.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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It was taking her newborn daughter Melinda for routine inoculations at the local doctors\u2019 surgery in 2011 when Dr Asel Sartbaeva experienced her \u2018light bulb\u2019 moment for an innovative research idea. Observing that vaccines had to be taken out of a fridge and used almost immediately, she identified a challenge facing public health officials worldwide.<\/p>\n

\"Dr
Dr Asel Sartbaeva in her lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cVaccines need to be kept between 2\u02daC and 8\u02daC. Above or below these temperatures they degrade. So, how do you store and transport vaccines, especially to remote parts of the world where they are so needed?\u201d she explains when we meet.<\/p>\n

The answer, she discovered, is a costly and often impractical process of constant refrigeration, otherwise known\u00a0as the \u2018cold chain\u2019. This challenge leads to wastage and leaves vulnerable patients without the life-saving treatments they need. Recent estimates suggest that more than 6 million people around the globe, of whom 2.5 million are children under five, die every year from vaccine-preventable diseases. A recent UNICEF<\/a> report suggests that transportation costs for vaccines can run to as much as $300 million a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy trip to the doctors really got me thinking,\u201d she tells me. \u201cWhat if I could use my knowledge of inorganic\u00a0materials to make vaccines stable at room temperature?\u201d<\/p>\n

Drawing on her experience and expertise working with silica-based materials, Asel envisaged an idea for a new nano coating that could protect a vaccine from its environment both in transit and for storage. Using the latest chemistry advances, she set out to show how a protective substance could be grown around individual vaccine molecules, enabling it to be taken anywhere in the world without refrigeration.<\/p>\n

Publicising on the world stage<\/strong><\/p>\n

I catch up with Royal Society Research Fellow Asel in the University\u2019s Department of Chemistry, refreshed and invigorated having delivered one of the keynote presentations at a recent Google X Conference<\/a> in California. \u201cI think it was partly the effect of the Californian sun, and partly the interest and enthusiasm in my project!\u201d she tells me, explaining how her talk, one of only 18 from around the world and one of only two from the UK, generated a lot of interest from both Google X and other organisations globally.<\/p>\n