LONDON, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- University College London (UCL) announced on Thursday that it, along with the University of Oxford, will lead the work at a new vaccine research hub, in a bid to push forward the development and manufacturing of vaccines.

The Future Vaccine Manufacturing Research Hub will bring together academia, industry and policy makers and will work to improve responses to outbreaks of pandemics such as Swine Flu and Ebola.

Researchers at the hub will work to address major challenges such as reducing the risk of failure in moving between different vaccine types, scales of manufacture and locations, mitigating costs, responding to threats, future epidemics and pandemics, etc.

"Many vaccines use manufacturing processes that are 50 to 60 years old and have resulted in supply interruptions in the UK and developing nations," said Dr Tarit Mukhopadhyay from UCL.

"This investment will create tools and novel manufacturing technologies that will modernize vaccine manufacturing processes that were established in the last century, so that these life-saving medicines are available to all, irrespective of economic circumstance," Mukhopadhyay also said.