Ebola, Marburg and Lassa fever can cause severe, often fatal illness and trigger devastating outbreaks.
The study will involve human volunteers, and the trials will be the first time vaccines are used on people.
Immune response and safety will be the main areas of study by researchers.
Ebola, Marburg and Lassa viruses belong to a group called viral haemorrhagic fevers. They can damage blood vessels, cause internal and external bleeding, and in some outbreaks, are deadly for many of the people infected.
Outbreaks tend to strike suddenly, often in parts of the world with limited healthcare infrastructure, including parts of Central and East Africa, and West Africa, making fast and effective vaccine development a global priority.
The vaccines being tested in EML-Vac use a new technology called self-amplifying RNA (saRNA). Unlike traditional vaccines, which can take years to develop and manufacture, saRNA vaccines can be designed and produced much more quickly.
These vaccines work by giving the body instructions to make harmless pieces of the virus, allowing the immune system to learn to recognise and fight the real infection if it is encountered in the future.
The three vaccines have been designed to target the glycoproteins of the Ebola, Marburg and Lassa viruses and are delivered inside tiny fat-based particles, known as lipid nanoparticles, which help the vaccines enter cells more efficiently.
This is the first time these vaccines will be tested in people. The EML-Vac study will focus on two main areas:
Whether the vaccines are well tolerated by participants (safety)
Whether the vaccines trigger the types of immune reactions researchers expect (immune response)
The team is now recruiting healthy volunteers aged 18 to 50 to take part in the study, which will be carried out at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and sponsored by Imperial.
By taking part, volunteers will be helping researchers gather the crucial early data needed to move these vaccines towards wider testing and, eventually, real-world use.
