A new approach to CMV vaccination for kidney transplant patients

14 May 2026

Professor Matthew Reeves from University College London has been awarded a £115,000 Professor Michael Nicholson PhD studentship to develop new ways of making vaccines for human cytomegalovirus (CMV), to protect kidney transplant patients.

Immune responses from vaccinations

Vaccines protect us from infectious diseases by providing the immune system with information about the virus before we are infected by the virus itself. The immune system is then ready to respond faster to the infection making it less likely to cause disease. Vaccination is not just about making an immune response but making the right immune response that will protect us. This relies on the vaccine being efficient at giving the immune system the right information about the virus that it may have to respond to in the future.

Kidney transplant patients are vulnerable to cytomegalovirus infection

Professor Matthew Reeves and the team are interested in human cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common virus that currently infects over half of the world’s population. It is part of the herpes group of viruses, closely related to the viruses that cause cold sores, chickenpox and glandular fever.

It becomes a problem in people who have weaker immune systems like kidney transplant patients because the drugs that protect their new kidney (called immunosuppressants) weaken their immune system. For these individuals, CMV can cause serious illness and increase the risk of kidney rejection.

While antiviral medications are available to manage CMV, vaccinating patients before transplant, when their immune system is still strong, could offer an additional way to help protect them and avoid side effects of using antiviral drugs.

Professor Matthew Reeves commented: “We are exploring whether vaccinating patients prior to transplantation could mean antiviral drugs are needed less often and the worry around CMV infection is reduced for transplant patients. There’s a critical window after transplant, when patients are highly immunosuppressed, and that’s when we most need to protect them. By building a CMV-specific immune response ahead of time, we hope to help safeguard patients during this particularly vulnerable period.”

mRNA vaccines

mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) is a molecule found naturally in the body that acts as a messenger, carrying instructions from DNA to produce the proteins that are essential for life.

mRNA vaccines can be made very quickly against viruses and are effective promoting immune responses that protect us.

However, these vaccines can be challenging to store and transport as they need to be kept at very cold temperatures which makes them very expensive.

Female side on to the camera, she is at a lab bench doing experiments — Mary Barker working in a tissue culture suite infecting cells with CMV.

Rethinking how CMV vaccines are made

In this study, Matthew and the team aim to develop new ways of making mRNA vaccines for CMV that are easier and cheaper to store and transport.

Working with a chemistry colleague at UCL, Professor Stefan Howorka, the team is exploring a new way to design mRNA vaccines against cytomegalovirus (CMV).

Their approach uses a technique inspired by origami, where the mRNA is carefully folded into specific shapes, helping it become more stable, especially at room temperature.

By creating and testing different folded designs, the researchers will study how well these vaccines hold their structure and whether cells can use them to produce the proteins needed to trigger an immune response.

They will also examine the kind of immune protection these vaccines generate and how effectively they could help protect against CMV infection.

What could this mean for kidney transplant patients?

For kidney transplant patients, this grant enables the team at UCL to begin developing and testing early CMV vaccine designs. It is important to understand whether these vaccines can help protect patients during the critical period around transplantation, laying the groundwork for future larger studies, including pathway to treating other important viral infections in renal transplant patients.

“There is real variation in how post-transplant patients access and manage protection against viruses. Once patients leave the transplant centre, follow-up care becomes much more regional, and access to specialist support can vary significantly depending on where someone lives. That’s why we are focusing on developing a cheaper and easier to access vaccine so that patients can be protected from CMV before their transplant. We hope this approach will be better aligned with the realities of transplant care.” Professor Matthew Reeves.