About us

As a coalition of Canada's leading infectious disease institutions, the PREVENT team is well-positioned to safely and effectively facilitate vaccine mid-stage development, testing and taking projects forward to commercialization.

Each year infectious diseases claim the lives of almost twice as many people as heart disease and more than three times that of various forms of cancer, demonstrating the need to adopt a strong and effective approach to technology transfer, and to take much needed vaccines into production.

This is the focus of the Pan-Provincial Vaccine Enterprise (PREVENT), a partnership of three of Canada's leading infectious disease clusters – (VIDO) Vaccine Infectious Disease Organization (University of Saskatchewan), (CCfV) Canadian Center for Vaccinology (Dalhousie University – IWK Health Centre – QE11 Health Sciences Centre), and (BCCDC) BC Centre for Disease Control (University of British Columbia), funded by the federal Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research Program.

The PREVENT team works to establish a comprehensive preclinical and early clinical platform for the introduction of vaccines of high priority for the public health system. The team works closely with academia, industry, government and not-for-profit sectors to accelerate downstream vaccine development so that promising and much-needed vaccines can move readily into clinical development and production.

researcher at computerIn bridging the funding gap between discovery and development, PREVENT provides industry with a most attractive incentive to participate in high quality, value-added, low-risk product development opportunities.

If taking an important, promising vaccine candidate from bench to market is frequently deemed financially unfeasible for industry, how can the PREVENT initiative be successful?

PREVENT President and CEO Dr. Andrew Potter says, "It is really simple. We have the infrastructure in place, which represents a partner contribution-in-kind. We have a partnership of some of the best vaccine research scientists in the world and our time spent on PREVENT's mid-stage R&D projects is provided in-kind."

Viewing the strength and diversity of the PREVENT partnership, one can see that, in terms of expertise, PREVENT has no equal in Canada.



Did you know?
image of E. coli bacteria

Escherichia coli (E. coli), is a bacterium commonly found in the lower intestine of warm-blooded animals. Most E. coli strains are harmless and are part of the normal beneficial flora of the gut, but some, such as serotype O157:H7, can cause serious food poisoning in humans. Ingestion of contaminated water or food is the usual causes of illness from E. coli.

BACKGROUNDER

Immunization:
Inoculation and Vaccination

Inoculation (also known as variolation) was introduced to the west by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), who witnessed inoculation being
portrait of lady
practiced by physicians in Constantinople,[12] and was greatly impressed:[13] she had lost a brother to smallpox and bore facial scars from the disease herself. In 1718 she had the embassy surgeon inoculate her son, and in 1721, after returning to England, had her daughter inoculated[14]. In 1722 the Prince of Wales' daughters received inoculations[16].

The practice of inoculation slowly spread amongst the royal families of Europe, followed by general adoption amongst the rest of the population. Given the severe consequences of smallpox in Europe in the 18th century, many parents felt that the benefits outweighed the risks and so inoculated their children.[21] [22]

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