in the world who have one of these viruses, which are a major cause of liver disease and liver cancer. Producing vaccines for hepatitis C and producing better treatments for hepatitis C are really important things that could affect the lives of millions of people. Q: How does your research fit into Translational Medicine within the department? PK: What we have tried to do is take all the findings about the different types of immune response that help clear the virus, and try and generate vaccines that produce those responses in advance so that when someone encounters hepatitis C their immune response is ready to go and can contain the virus. We have made quite a lot of progress in generating vaccines of that kind and we have put them into healthy donors. We have also tried to use that technology to improve the immune response in people who have already been infected. So we are hoping we can use our knowledge of the immunology to help us protect people from hepatitis C and even cure them from hepatitis C.