CIHR Catalyst Grant: Vaccines of the 21st Century

Regulatory challenges to the development of new vaccines: Mapping emergent relations between science, evidence and policy.

Total Amount Awarded: $99280

Principal Investrigator:

• Dr. Janice E. Graham

Co-Applicants:  

• Dr. Scott Halperin
• Dr. Amrita Mishra
• Dr. Farah Huzair

This project aims to study the regulatory challenges to the development of new vaccines. This project will engage and build upon the expertise of a multidisciplinary team as they investigate the important evolving relationships between science, evidence and policy. In doing so, the study will fill a crucial gap in the literature by drawing national and international comparisons and by generating novel insights on how emerging regulation impacts on the development of new vaccines. A multi-sited ethnographic approach is employed with three cases being investigated and compared. Study 1 is an examination of the new questions and issues for the field of cervical cancer prevention with the availability of vaccination against high risk HPV. Study 2 examines the innovation and production of the pandemic influenza vaccine in Canada. Study 3 presents a contrasting approach of the African Meningitis vaccine and the implementation of the regulatory framework in Burkina Faso, from which developed and developing country comparisons and lessons are drawn.