The BRILLIANT Consortium (BRinging Innovation to cLinical and Laboratory research to end HIV In Africa through New vaccine Technology), is a Cooperative Agreement with the US Agency for International Development and kicked off in September 2023.
BRILLIANT constitutes a multi-disciplinary collaboration with partners and collaborators from Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa and Internationally with the overall objective of developing and evaluating HIV vaccine candidates emanating from the African continent. The consortium has extensive expertise in HIV vaccine and prevention research, HIV therapeutic research including analytical treatment interruption, HIV immunogen discovery, and First in Human (FIH) experimental HIV vaccine research.
The consortium is led by the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC) and is supported by a robust network of diverse community organizations.
BRILLIANT will evaluate both “First in Africa” (FIA) clinical development with existing immunogens and adjuvants, as well as FIH HIV vaccine discovery medicine studies of novel immunogens emanating from Africa.
Our aim is to move the HIV vaccine field forward by the rapid evaluation and optimizing immunogen design utilizing the experimental medicine clinical trial platform, referred to as HIV Discovery Research.
We envisage that after 5 years we will have advanced at least one HIV vaccine candidate developed in Africa into early phase clinical trials that are discovery in nature that allow for further iteration and development of promising candidates
Our mission is to harness and catalyze African scientists to contribute to an African-led effective HIV vaccine
To develop a HIV vaccine pipeline that emanates from the African continent
clinical research that brings our community, regulatory and ethical stakeholders into the clinical development process as active participants;
our clinical trial infrastructure, including the shipment and cold-chain handling and storage of investigational material;
our safety and immunogenicity laboratory infrastructure and quality assurance processes;
our statistical, data management system and safety monitoring processes; and
our ability to conduct high quality clinical trials.
We will spearhead vaccine development (including immunogen and adjuvant design and identification of appropriate platforms and delivery mechanisms); conduct preclinical studies to determine the safety, toxicity and immunogenicity of immunogens and adjuvants in animal studies; and finally conduct clinical trials using novel vaccine formulations, adjuvant combinations and delivery methods.
Preclinical and clinical studies including analysis of host-HIV and host-immunogen responses and the development of vaccine candidates will be conducted in our laboratories, with our partners, or with support from our collaborators. For the further development of vaccines, we will work with biotech companies like Afrigen and manufacturers such as Biovac to support the production of GMP-compliant material for human studies.
