Development of vaccines at the time of COVID-19

Jeffrey Almond; Jörg Hacker; Colin Harwood; Mariagrazia Pizza; Rino Rappuoli; Eliora Z Ron; Philippe Sansonetti; Samantha Vanderslott; Lothar H Wieler

doi:10.1093/femsml/uqaa003

Development of vaccines at the time of COVID-19

Microlife. 2020 Dec 17;1(1):uqaa003. doi: 10.1093/femsml/uqaa003. eCollection 2020 Jul.

Authors

Jeffrey Almond¹, Jörg Hacker², Colin Harwood³, Mariagrazia Pizza⁴, Rino Rappuoli⁴, Eliora Z Ron⁵, Philippe Sansonetti⁶, Samantha Vanderslott⁷, Lothar H Wieler⁸

Affiliations

¹ The Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3RE, UK.
² German National Academy of Science Leopoldina, Jägerberg 1, 06108 Halle, Germany.
³ Centre for Bacterial Cell Biology, Biosciences Institute, Newcastle University, Baddiley-Clark Building, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4AX, UK.
⁴ GSK Vaccines, Via Fiorentina, 1, 53100 Siena SI, Italy.
⁵ The Shmunis School of Biomedicine and Cancer Research, Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, PO Box 39040, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel.
⁶ Institut Pasteur, 25-28 Rue du Dr Roux, 75015 Paris, France.
⁷ Oxford Vaccine Group and Oxford Martin School, 34 Broad St, Oxford OX1 3BD, UK.
⁸ Robert Koch Institute, Nordufer 20, 13353 Berlin, Germany.

Abstract

In December 2019, a working group of the European Academy of Microbiology assembled to discuss various aspects of vaccines and vaccinations. The meeting was organised by Jörg Hacker and Eliora Z. Ron and took place in the offices of the Leopoldina (German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina). Several important issues were addressed and a major part of the discussion focused on the need to develop new vaccines, especially to protect against pathogens that constitute a pandemic threat. Following the rapid and unpredicted spread of COVID-19 in the first seven months of 2020, the need to develop vaccines for pandemic viruses rapidly has been clearly established. Thus, this paper will concentrate on points that were highlighted by the recent COVID-19 pandemic and lessons learnt therefrom.

Keywords: COVID-19; pandemics; pathogens; vaccination; vaccines; vaccinology.