OBJECTIVES

The long-term goal of the FLUCOP project is to improve and standardise the existing immunological assays applicable for the definition of correlates of protection in future efficacy trials and, whenever feasible, to develop new assays to better evaluate influenza vaccine immunogenicity.

The ultimate goals will be achieved through three intermediate objectives:

  1. Achieving standardisation of HAI (haemagglutination inhibition) and VN (virus neutralisation) assays (work package 1), as primary goal
  2. Advancing the understanding and application of CMI (cell-mediated immunity) (work package 2) and NA (neuraminidase) assays (work package 3) as tools for evaluating influenza vaccine performance, as secondary goal
  3. Consideration of new technologies that could to be applied to investigate correlates of protection and population based evaluations of influenza vaccines (work package 4), as an exploratory goal

Work Packages

The FLUCOP project is constructed containing a set of five focused work packages with leaders selected by area of expertise. The FLUCOP project will have four research work packages (WPs):

>The coordination and management of the FLUCOP consortium as well as the aim of increasing awareness within the scientific community of the newly generated knowledge is achieved through: