COVID19 Road to a vaccine episode 14: Dr Bruce Gellin
In episode 14, our host, Associate Professor Nigel Crawford, speaks to Dr Bruce Gellin. Bruce is the President of Global Immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington. The Sabin Vaccine Institute’s mission is to make vaccines more accessible, enable innovation and expand immunisation across the globe. Bruce took up this role in 2017, prior to this serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the National Vaccine Program Office at the US Department of Health and Human Services where he served as technical and policy advisor to the WHO, focusing on influenza vaccines and global issues of vaccine hesitancy. Bruce has also worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), consulted for GAVI and is one of America’s principle spokespeople on vaccines and immunisations. He and Nigel discuss the following in the context of vaccine confidence:
- The recent halting of the Oxford Astrazeneca trial and how the system that is in place did exactly what is supposed to
- “The Cutter Incident” and the ongoing impact this has had on vaccine safety, particularly from the manufacturing perspective
- The vast importance of ensuring immunisation providers understand the vaccine development process as if they don’t understand it and are sceptical this can have a huge impact on vaccine uptake
- The importance of open disclosure in the vaccine development pathway
- How the Sabin Vaccine Institute is meeting the challenge of vaccine hesitancy
- Sabin’s‘Boost’ program for healthcare workers
- How vaccines are monitored once they are in use, also called phase IV surveillance
Links:
- The Sabin Vaccine Institute
- The Conversation: Halting the Oxford vaccine trial doesn’t mean it’s not safe – it shows they’re following the right process
- The Cutter Incident by Paul Offit
- Sabin Vaccine Institute: Immunization Advocates
- Sabin Vaccine Institute: Boost
- The Lancet: Mapping global trends in vaccine confidence and investigating barriers to vaccine uptake: a large-scale retrospective temporal modelling study
- The Lancet: It is time to get serious about vaccine confidence
Listen to the episode here:
COVID19 Road to a vaccine episode 12: Professor Heidi Larson
In this episode of COVID19 Road to a vaccine, our host, Associate Professor Nigel Crawford speaks to Professor Heidi Larson. Heidi is an anthropologist and Director of the Vaccine Confidence Project and Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The Vaccine Confidence Project is a WHO centre of excellence on addressing vaccine hesitancy. Heidi is the previous head of Global Immunisation Communication at UNICEF, chaired GAVI’s advocacy taskforce and served on the WHO SAGE working group on vaccine hesitancy. In this episode they discuss:
- How and why Heidi founded The Vaccine Confidence Project
- Why vaccine confidence is already proving to be so important in relation to a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine when there is not yet a vaccine that has gone through all the phases of a clinical trial
- Whether or not vaccine confidence is impacted by the way in which different countries are handling the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic
- The importance of health care workers modelling vaccine uptake to promote vaccine confidence
- Positive ways we can use social media to promote vaccine preparedness
- Resistance to mandatory vaccination and the importance of community vs herd immunity
Links:
- The Vaccine Confidence Project
- WHO: Denmark campaign rebuilds confidence in HPV vaccination
- Japan’s HPV crisis: act now to avert cervical cancer cases and deaths
Listen to the episode here:
COVID19 Road to a vaccine episode 11: Associate Professor Margie Danchin and Professor Julie Leask
In episode 11 of our COVID19 Road to a vaccine series, our host, Nigel Crawford, speaks to experts in vaccine confidence, Associate Professor Margie Danchin and Professor Julie Leask. Margie is a consultant paediatrician at the Royal Children’s Hospital, an Associate Professor within the University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, where she is the leader of the Vaccine Uptake Group. Julie is a social scientist and professor in the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney and a visiting Professorial Fellow at NCIRS (the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance). In this episode they discuss:
- Responses to vaccine hesitancy and promoting vaccine confidence from an Australian perspective
- The importance of language and definitions when it comes to vaccine confidence, hesitancy and uptake
- (5) important ways to prepare the public for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine
- The role of social media platforms in communicating this information
- The importance of measuring vaccine confidence in the community
- Ways of communicating well around adverse events in gaining community trust and maintaining vaccine programs, including utilising expertise from specialist immunisation clinics (SICs)
Links:
- Vaccine: Words matter: Vaccine hesitancy, vaccine demand, vaccine confidence, herd immunity and mandatory vaccination
- COSSI Network
- Sharing Knowledge About Immunisation
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COVID19 Road to a vaccine episode 10: Professor Paul Young and Professor Trent Munro
In episode 10 of our COVID19 Road to a vaccine series, our host, Nigel Crawford, speaks with Professors Paul Young and Trent Munro to discuss the University of Queensland (UQ) COVID-19 vaccine candidate. UQ and CEPI (the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation) have partnered with CSL (Seqirus) to advance their novel molecular clamp technology to develop their vaccine for COVID-19. This vaccine has recently progressed to Phase 1 clinical trials. In this episode they discuss:
- The University of Queensland COVID19 vaccine development process
- The involvement of CEPI in their trial
- The use of a molecular clamp platform in the development of their protein SARS-CoV-2 vaccine
- Results of their preclinical trials
- Their partnership with CSL/Seqirus and the use of the MF59 adjuvant
- The timeline of their clinical trials and the upcoming steps
Links:
- CEPI partners with University of Queensland to create rapid response vaccines
- Dosing begins in the first human trial of UQ’s COVID-19 vaccine
- The University of Queensland, CEPI and CSL partner to advance development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccine candidate
Listen to the episode here:
COVID19 Road to a vaccine episode 9: Professor Robert Booy
In episode 9 of our COVID19 Road to a vaccine series, our host, Associate Professor Nigel Crawford, speaks with Professor Robert Booy. Robert is a Professor of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Sydney and is a Senior Professorial Fellow at NCIRS, the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance at Westmead Children’s Hospital. He has special research interests in serious infections and their prevention, particularly in the setting of aged care facilities. In this episode they discuss:
- Special risk groups when it comes to SARS-CoV-2, in particular, those living and working in aged care facilities
- How the ageing process leads to immunosenescence and the impact of this on vaccine efficacy in the elderly population
- The use of adjuvants in vaccines for the elderly population
- How to improve public health messaging and the management of respiratory illnesses in aged care facilities
- Lessons learnt from around the world with high mortality rates in aged care residents and workers and how that can inform the response to outbreaks in aged care facilities in Australia
Links:
- The Conversation: Protecting our elderly: beating flu outbreaks in nursing homes
- The Guardian: National cabinet plans rapid-response units to curb COVID-19 outbreaks in Australian aged care facilities
- PLOS One: Treating and Preventing Influenza in Aged Care Facilities: A Cluster Randomised Controlled Trial
Listen to the episode here:
COVID19 Road to a vaccine episode 8: Professor Katie Flanagan
In episode 8 of our COVID19 Road to a vaccine series, our host, Associate Professor Nigel Crawford, speaks with Professor Katie Flanagan. Katie is Head of Infectious Diseases at Launceston General Hospital and is affiliated with the University of Tasmania, Monash University and RMIT where she is involved in a broad range of research projects, with her main interests being in vaccinology and infectious diseases immunology. She has led a number of vaccine immunology trials. In this episode they discuss:
- Immunological aspects of SARS-CoV-2
- Vaccine responses in adults versus children and the difference in adult immune systems
- Vaccinology strategies being used in the development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine
- Antibody response variation by age
- Viral vector vaccines and how they work
- Novel vaccine approaches and the implications of these on vaccine safety including: mRNA and DNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines
Links:
- VACSIG: Vaccination Special Interest Group
- The Lancet: Immunogenicity and safety of recombinant adenovirus type-5-vectored COVID-19 vaccine in healthy adults ages 18 years or older: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 trial
- The Lancet: Safety and immunogenicity of the ChAdOx1 nCOV-19 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2: a preliminary report of a phase ½, single-blind, randomised controlled trial
- WHO draft landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines
- COVID-19 Vaccine tracker
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COVID19 Road to a vaccine episode 7: Professor Norman Baylor
In episode 7 of our COVID19 Road to a vaccine series, our host, Associate Professor Nigel Crawford speaks with Professor Norman Baylor. Professor Baylor is the former Director of the Office of Vaccines Research and Review Center at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is the President and CEO of Biologics Consulting and current advisor to the WHO.
In this episode they discuss:
- The important role of regulatory authorities in the development and release of new vaccines
- Emergency Use Authorisations (EUA) and their use
- Compressed timelines in the development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines
- Requirements of regulatory bodies in the development of vaccines
- Opportunities for collaboration/”work-sharing” between the national regulatory bodies (FDA, EMA and TGA)
- The role of regulatory bodies in vaccine safety
Links:
- WHO draft landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines
- Biologics Consulting
- FDA cautions against use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19
- FDA: Vaccines
- WHO: Vaccine regulation
- TGA: Vaccines overview
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COVID19 Road to a vaccine episode 6: Professor Paul Offit
In episode 6 of our COVID19 Road to a vaccine series, our host, Associate Professor Nigel Crawford, speaks to Professor Paul Offit. Professor Offit is an infectious diseases physician and Director of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHoP) Vaccine Education Center (VEC). The VEC website inspired the creation of the Melbourne Vaccine Education Centre, the host of this podcast series.
In this episode they discuss:
- The impact of SARS-CoV-2 on health care workers and the importance of a vaccine
- Preventative therapies and randomised controlled trials in a pandemic, specifically the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 and the other trials involving health care workers
- COVID-19 in children - do they play a role in transmission? Will they be a target for vaccine studies?
- Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome (PIMS) - how can we factor this emerging condition into safety planning?
Links:
- New York Times: We know crowding affects the spread. It may affect the death rate.
- New York Times: Re-thinking COVID-19 in children
- Vaccine Education Center
- MVEC: Clinical trial of BCG vaccine against COVID-19
- Paul Offit: Deadly Choices
- Paul Offit: The Cutter Incident
You can listen to this episode here:
COVID19 Road to a vaccine episode 5: Professor Terry Nolan
In episode 5 of our COVID19 Road to a vaccine series, our host, Associate Professor Nigel Crawford speaks to Professor Terry Nolan. Professor Nolan is a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity. He heads up VIRGO, the vaccine and immunisation research group, a collaboration between Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the University of Melbourne. VIRGO has the largest and longest standing child and adolescent vaccine population research and clinical trials program in Australia. He previously chaired ATAGI, the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation and was a member of SAGE, the World Health Organisation's main advisory group on vaccines and immunisation. They discuss the COVID-19 candidate vaccines from an Australian perspective and Australia's role in global clinical trials.
Links:
- The Lancet: A real time dashboard of clinical trials for COVID-19
- ClinicalTrials.Gov
- Global Coronavirus COVID-19 Clinical Trial Tracker
- WHO Draft landscape of COVID-19 vaccine candidates
- Chief Scientist: The most promising vaccines for COVID-19
- WHO: SAGE
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COVID19 Road to a vaccine podcast episode 4: Professor Kanta Subbarao
In episode 4 of our COVID19 Road to a vaccine series, our host, Associate Professor Nigel Crawford, will be speaking to Professor Kanta Subbarao. Professor Subbarao has been the Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza since 2016, based at The Doherty Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She is a virologist and physician who specialises in paediatric infectious diseases. Her research is focused on influenza, as well as newly emerging viral diseases of global importance such as SARS and MERS, which includes immune responses to infection and vaccination.
In this episode they discuss:
- The specific virus characteristics of SARS-CoV-2
- How the biosafety laboratory at VIDRL (Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory) were able to culture the SARS-CoV-2 virus and distribute their findings globally
- The origin of coronaviruses and why this pandemic strain is different
- The spike protein and the important role antibodies play in the development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine
- Immunological principles in the development of a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine
- How to determine an antibody is functional and protective
- The likelihood of SARS-CoV-2 changing over time
You can listen via our podcast page or via the links below: