A multi-million-pound research centre to develop vaccines for worlds’s most devastating infectious diseases, including bird flu, has opened in Oxford.

The Oxford University laboratory, at the Churchill Hospital, in Headington, will house researchers working on vaccines for malaria, tuberculosis and HIV.

The £5m Jenner Institute Laboratories were opened by Dr Tadataka Yamada, the president of the Bill Gates Foundation’s Global Health Programme, on Friday.

Institute director Prof Adrian Hill said: “The new state-of-the-art laboratories will support world-leading vaccine research and development at the university.

“With the concentration of researchers we have here, coupled with these excellent new facilities, we’re well placed to tackle the challenge of developing vaccines against some of the world’s most devastating infectious diseases.”

The centre is a partnership between Oxford University, which will focus on human vaccines, and the UK Institute for Animal Health, which develops vaccines for animal and livestock diseases.

The Jenner Institute, founded in 1995, is named after Edward Jenner, the Georgian doctor credited with developing the first vaccine for smallpox.

One of the main tasks of the researchers will be to develop vaccines for animals and humans against bird flu.

In June last year, chicken farmer Richard Court, his wife Anthea and their son Jonathon were devastated when the highly contagious H7N7 strain of avian flu was found at their 150-acre Eastwood Farm, between Shenington and Shutford, in north Oxfordshire.

Soon after the alarm was raised their flock of 25,000 free-range chickens was slaughtered.

Government agriculture officials were unable to discover how the flock became infected.

The laboratory will bring together scientists working in areas such as immunology and genetics and pathogen biology to make vaccines commercially viable.

Friday’s official unveiling was attended by representatives from the Government, public and private sector vaccine developers.

It also marked the completion of a £20m investment in facilities for vaccinology at the Old Road and Churchill Hospital site since the opening of the Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine in 2003.

Prof Alastair Buchan, head of the university’s medical sciences division, said: “Immunology and vaccine research is one of Oxford’s great strengths.

“I’m delighted these new laboratories are now complete.

“They highlight the leading role vaccine development plays in the division’s strategy to enable the translation of excellent basic research into life-saving medicines.”

Next month, the Churchill Hospital celebrates the opening of a £109m new cancer centre.The centre will bring together all of the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust’s cancer services under one roof.

mwilkinson@oxfordmail.co.uk