Communicable E35: From Ebola to COVID-19 — Graham and Kobinger on building vaccines

In this episode of Communicable, Angela Huttner and Erin McCreary invite two titans of vaccinology, Barney Graham (Atlanta, USA), former deputy director of the NIH NIAID Vaccine Research Center and architect of the mRNA vaccines against COVID-19, and Gary Kobinger (Galveston, USA), leading virologist in the development of the first effective Ebola vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV, for a candid conversation about their direct experience building two of the most well known vaccines to date, and deploying them to the public. The episode also reviews the different vaccine platforms and addresses vaccine hesitancy, equitable access to vaccines, and global health equity.

This episode was edited by Kathryn Hostettler and peer reviewed by Eren Ozturk of Ankara University, Ankara, Türkiye.

Terms and sources

• VSV, vesicular stomatitis virus
• ZEBOV, Zaire Ebolavirus
• rVSV-ZEBOV, recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus expressing the (Zaire) Ebolavirus glycoprotein (vaccine)
• VRC, the NIH Vaccine Research Center of NIAID
• Morehouse School of Medicine Satcher Global Health Equity Institute
• GuardRX, https://www.guardrx.org/en/who-we-are/

References

1. Marzi A, et al. VSV-EBOV rapidly protects macaques against infection with the 2014/15 Ebola virus outbreak strain. Science 2015. DOI: 10.1126/science.aab3920
2. Agnandji S, Huttner A, Zinser M, et al. Phase 1 Trials of rVSV Ebola Vaccine in Africa and Europe. New Engl J Med 2015. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1502924
3. Graham BS and Corbett KS. Prototype pathogen approach for pandemic preparedness: world on fire. J Clin Invest 2020. DOI: 10.1172/JCI139601
4. Jackson LA, Anderson EJ, Rouphael NG, et al. An mRNA Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 - Preliminary Report. New Engl J Med 2020. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2022483