Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) remains a major cause of liver disease in Canada and worldwide. There are 250-350 thousand chronic carriers of HCV in Canada - approximately seven times more than the number of HIV infected people. An effective vaccine for HCV remains an urgent medical need globally. Although there has been significant progress in the development of direct acting antiviral agents, these drugs are proving to be very expensive. To address this challenge, my proposed supervisor's research group has recently developed a cell culture system that can increase the production of HCV by 1000 times. This makes the production of a "killed" viral vaccine for HCV feasible. My plan is now to produce a new HCV vaccine and test its ability to prevent HCV infection in cell culture as well as in an animal model. My research has two specific objectives: 1. to produce sufficient amounts of "killed" HCV vaccine to immunize mice, and 2. to compare the various immune responses produced by the new HCV vaccine with another experimental HCV vaccine. I anticipate that my proposed HCV vaccine will result in more complete immune protection than the limited protection afforded by other vaccines. The proposed studies may provide important leads to the development of a successful vaccine that can protect against many forms of HCV.