COVID Vaccines - From Discovery to the Fastest Vaccine Development in History: COVID Vaccines - From Discovery to the Fastest Vaccine Development in History

Division/Committee: [BIOT] Division of Biochemical Technology

Given the emergence of the global COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of work has been initiated in early 2020 to rapidly develop vaccines against the corresponding virus, SARS-CoV-2. Such a human vaccine is essential initially for the protection of high-risk individuals and health care workers and ultimately to obtain so-called herd or community immunity. Traditional approaches to prophylactic vaccine development (e.g. attenuated strains of viruses, heat-inactivated viruses or recombinant proteins) have lengthy development timelines to establish safety and efficacy. This session will focus on talks that highlight the challenges associated with accelerated vaccine development in the face of a global pandemic and that provide examples of how these have been tackled. The topics solicited include but are not limited to case studies showcasing use of disruptive approaches to accelerate vaccine development, use of platform technologies to develop COVID-19 vaccines under rapid timelines, innovative approaches in addressing long lead times associated with analytical development, characterization and release testing, and process scale-up and manufacturing to meet the demand of billions of vaccine doses.