Join Dame Sarah Gilbert for the 8th Elizabeth Blackwell Annual Public Lecture entitled ‘Developing the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine’ on Wednesday 6 October from 1 to 2 pm (UK BST).
In her talk, Dame Sarah, Professor of Vaccinology and the Oxford Project Leader for ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine, will go through the journey from the moment she first heard about a serious new illness affecting people in China, to her team designing a successful COVID-19 vaccine which would save the lives of millions of people.
Hear about the story of how the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine - both cheaper and easier to distribute than some other vaccines - was developed and approved at a pace, while the public waited for science to find a way out of this major global health challenge.
She will look at the reasons some people are hesitant to get vaccinated and discuss how people’s trust in science can be affected by how science is communicated. What can we learn from this pandemic and the ways it could help us plan for future health crises, as we look towards a post-COVID world?
Dame Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: "Collaboration has been essential to the vaccine programme's success, from the research groups that came together here in Oxford to our industrial partners AstraZeneca and other universities both within the UK and wider. Most important though, have been our trial volunteers."
Dame Sarah Gilbert completed her undergraduate studies at the University of East Anglia and her doctoral degree at the University of Hull. Following four years as a research scientist at the biopharmaceutical company Delta Biotechnology she joined Oxford University in 1994 and became part of the Jenner Institute (within NDM) when it was founded in 2005.
Her chief research interest is the development of viral-vectored vaccines that work by inducing strong and protective T and B cell responses. She works on vaccines for many different emerging pathogens, including influenza, Nipah, MERS, Lassa, Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever, and SARS-CoV-2.
Working with colleagues in the Jenner Institute research labs, the Clinical Biomanufacturing Facility and Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine, all situated on the Old Road Campus in Oxford, she is able to take novel vaccines from design to clinical development, with a particular interest in the rapid transfer of vaccines into manufacturing and first in human trials.
This is a FREE online event but requires registration. Tickets can be booked through Eventbrite, where you can also sign up for the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute Bulletin to enter a prize draw to win a copy of Vaxxers, the new book by Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert and Dr Catherine Green, giving the inside story of the Oxford vaccine and the race against the virus.
The 2021 Elizabeth Blackwell Annual Public Lecture entitled ‘Developing the Oxford AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine’ will be given at a FREE live online event by Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert on Wednesday 6 October from 1 to 2 pm (UK BST / GMT+1) .