Earlier this June, people at Imperial College London had the opportunity to hear from a scientist who affected all our lives, Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert from the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford. The Department of Life Sciences hosted Prof Gilbert for the Sir Ernst Chain lecture, a celebration of the late biochemist who developed the techniques to isolate and produce Penicillin, together with Howard Florey and Alexander Fleming.
Prof Gilbert works on viral vector vaccines. In 2020 she led the group who, together with Astra Zeneca, developed and produced one of the Covid-19 vaccines. The Oxford/Astra Zeneca (ChAdOx1 nCov-19) vaccine was used in 180 countries. It is estimated to have saved over 6 million lives in the first year it was used!
Our guest blogger, Arabella Heath wrote a blog post about her talk and how combination of molecular science and engineering was crucial for vaccine development in a pandemic.