Jenner Institute
The Jenner Institute is a research institute on the Old Road Campus in Headington, east Oxford, England. It was formed in November 2005 through a partnership between the University of Oxford and the UK Institute for Animal Health. It is associated with the Nuffield Department of Medicine, in the Medical Sciences Division of Oxford University. The institute receives charitable support from the Jenner Vaccine Foundation.
| Parent institution | University of Oxford |
|---|---|
| Established | November 2005 |
| Director | Adrian Hill |
| Staff | 100 |
| Key people | Sarah Gilbert Helen McShane |
| Formerly called | Edward Jenner Institute for Vaccine Research |
| Address | Old Road Campus Research Building (ORCRB), Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK |
| Location | Old Road Campus Research Building , Oxford , United Kingdom |
| Coordinates | 51.7519293°N 1.2163045°W |
| Website | www |
The institute is led by Prof. Adrian Hill. The institute develops vaccines and carries out clinical trials for diseases including malaria, tuberculosis (vaccine MVA85A), ebola, and MERS-Coronavirus.
In 2020, the institute successfully developed the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, in a project backed by private companies including Oxford Sciences Innovation, Google Ventures, and Sequoia Capital, among others. When developed, the UK government backed trials, purchased 100 million doses, and encouraged Oxford to work with AstraZeneca, a company based in Europe, instead of Merck & Co., a US-based company; while the US gave US$1.2bn of government funding in return for 300 million doses. It collaborated with Italy's Advent Srl (part of the IRBM Group) on the development and Germany's Merck Group on the manufacture of the COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccinologist Dame Sarah Gilbert was one of the leading scientists involved in the development.
The institute is named after the English physician and immunization pioneer Edward Jenner (1749–1823), who was a major contributor to the development of the smallpox vaccine.