Press Release: NIAID Creates CIVICs

Home > Press Release: NIAID Creates CIVICs

The initiation of the Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs) program was announced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), on September 30, 2019 with press releases through both NIH and NIAID. The CIVICs Network of research centers will work together in a coordinated, multidisciplinary effort to develop more durable, broadly protective and longer-lasting influenza vaccines. Seasonal influenza causes hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While current seasonal influenza vaccines are widely available and provide important public health benefits, they could be improved. Notably, they do not always protect against all strains of circulating influenza viruses.

“To more effectively fight influenza on a global scale, we need better influenza vaccines that are more broadly protective. With the CIVICs program we hope to encourage an exchange of ideas, technology and scientific results across multiple institutions to facilitate a more efficient and coordinated approach to novel influenza vaccine development.”

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci

NIAID Director

CIVICs Network: A Collaborative Team for Advancing Flu Vaccine Science

The CIVICs program will include three Vaccine Centers, one Vaccine Manufacturing and Toxicology Core, two Clinical Cores, and one Statistical, Data Management, and Coordination Center (SDMCC). The Vaccine Centers will focus on designing novel vaccine candidates and delivery platforms with an emphasis on cross-protective vaccine strategies, in addition to focusing on new ways to study influenza viruses and the human immune response to them through computer modeling, animal models and human challenge trials.The most promising candidate vaccines will advance to clinical trials conducted by the Clinical Cores. The Vaccine Manufacturing and Toxicology Core will work with the Vaccine Centers to develop and manufacture the vaccine candidates for clinical testing. The CIVICs centers will regularly consult the SDMCC for assistance in designing statistically sound preclinical experiments and clinical trials. The SDMCC also will perform data analyses, make results available across the CIVICs program and ensure that data is available in publicly accessible databases.