91社区

The Genesis of the COVID Vaccine: The Path to the Nobel Prize

Featuring Nobel Laureate Dr. Drew Weissman

Vaccination has perhaps been the most significant advance in the history of medicine. Smallpox, a deadly disease, has been totally eradicated, while polio, mumps, measles and rubella have been effectively curbed. The development of vaccines makes for a fascinating story exemplified by the path that led to the introduction of the life-saving COVID-19 vaccine. As is often the case with research, serendipity, rejection, grit and determination all played a role in forging that path culminating in the awarding of a Nobel Prize to Dr. Drew Weissman and colleague Dr. Katalin Kariko.

The path to success is never a straight shot鈥攊t鈥檚 paved with occasional potholes and many unexpected detours. The trick is to not allow the 鈥渂umps鈥� along the way to stifle one's curiosity or extinguish one's passion. Even perceived failures inform next steps and every now and then the road offers up something magical and unexpected. Dr. Weissman's story began with a fiercely innate curiosity about the world in which he was surrounded. This curiosity fuelled his interest in science and he spent decades in obscurity, toiling away at a lab bench. What put Dr. Weissman on the road to the formulation of a world-wide life-saving vaccine and the Nobel? Luck? Grit? Or a little of both?

听

This symposium will be recorded and made available post-event on the 91社区 Office of Science and Society听website.

About the Speaker

, MD, PhD, is the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research and director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation at the Perelman School of Medicine. He is recognized for his work alongside Katalin Karik贸 in discovering the modified mRNA technology, which has launched a new era of vaccine and therapeutic development.

Their mRNA research breakthrough has been used in both the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and has revolutionized the field of vaccine development. Dr. Weissman鈥檚 current research focuses on developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine to stop the next coronavirus epidemic, a universal flu vaccine, cancer therapeutics, a vaccine to prevent herpes, as well as developing in vivo gene therapy to allow worldwide use and a variety of protein therapeutics delivered with mRNA-LNPs. He has recently expanded his efforts in building scientific and medical equity and is developing the full RNA-LNP ecosystem of development, testing, and use in low and middle-income countries.

Dr. Weissman earned bachelor鈥檚 and master鈥檚 degrees in biochemistry and enzymology from Brandeis University in 1981 and his M.D. and Ph.D. in immunology and microbiology in 1987 at Boston University School of Medicine. Following a residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, he took a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, where he worked with Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Dr. Weissman holds many patents and has published over 400 papers. He has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, and the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology.