Newton Fund Partners with Top Mexican Scientist to Advance Vaccine Development for Mosquito-borne Diseases
Research funded by the UK's Newton Fund led to the development of vaccines against Chikungunya, Zika and Dengue.
Dr Arturo Reyes Sandoval is the Director of the National Polytechnic Institute, one of the largest and most prestigious universities in Mexico. He specialised as a chemist, bacteriologist and parasitologist and has a PhD in molecular medicine. He has dedicated most of his career to the development of new vaccines, including when he worked as a researcher and professor at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University. This is where the Oxford/Astra-Zeneca vaccine against COVID-19 was developed.
Thanks to the UK’s Newton Fund for science and innovation, Dr Reyes Sandoval received two different grants to further investigations on mosquito-borne infectious diseases. His research led to the development of vaccines against Chikungunya, Zika and Dengue. These diseases are endemic in Mexico and can have severe impacts on people’s health.
In the case of Chikungunya, people suffering from the disease may develop rheumatoid arthritis, which significantly impairs their mobility. A severe form of Dengue can cause extreme bleeding, sudden drop in blood pressure and even death. Zika, on the other hand, has a predilection for infecting cells of the nervous system causing microcephaly in new-borns. When asked, Dr Reyes Sandoval explained, “Zika, Dengue and Chikungunya have a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable people who often live in the most precarious environments. These are places where rubbish and water accumulate creating the perfect combination for mosquitoes to breed and spread disease”.
The Newton Fund financed collaboration grants between scientists in the UK and Mexico working on the research and development of a vaccine specific for Dengue. This research began with studying viral samples at Oxford University, which has advanced laboratories for handling highly contagious pathogens, and culminated in a clinical trial of a new vaccine in Mexico. This initiative allowed scientists in both countries to work together to tackle this important public health issue.
Dr. Reyes Sandoval also described how the Newton Fund strengthened scientific partnerships between the UK and Mexico. “This work created a strong link between the University of Oxford and universities in Michoacán, Veracruz and Puebla. These are universities at the forefront of mosquito-borne disease research in Mexico, and we were able to contribute to three Oxford-Mexico collaborative laboratories to study human infectious diseases”.
Newton-funded research supported Dr Reyes Sandoval to develop and patent a Dengue vaccine in 2016. More recently, he led three successful clinical trials for a for Zika and Chikungunya vaccines, one of them in Mexico. For Chikungunya, 100% of the participants had antibodies induced after receiving the vaccine. In the future, Dr Reyes Sandoval plans to continue collaborating with researchers and Universities in the UK to develop vaccines against communicative diseases in Mexico.