Preparation and pandemics: confronting new threats

Join Christ Church on Wednesday 25 June at Oxford Town Hall for the Christ Church 500th anniversary lecture given by Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford.

The lecture will examine the power of university-industry collaborations in the battle to beat Nipah Virus, infectious diseases, and pandemic preparedness and will be followed by a panel discussion facilitated by Hugh Pym BBC Health Editor.

Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert is a Professor of Vaccinology in the Pandemic Sciences Institute at Oxford University. She works on vaccine technology development, and viral vectored vaccine development, with projects on influenza, Nipah, MERS, and Lassa. Working with colleagues on the Old Road Campus in Oxford, she is able to take novel vaccines from design through GMP manufacturing to clinical development, with a particular interest in the rapid transfer of vaccines into GMP manufacturing and first in human trials. She was the Oxford Project Leader for ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, also known as Vaxevria/Covishield, and the Oxford vaccine for COVID-19, which was estimated to have saved 6.3 million lives in its first year of use.

Professor Sir Peter Horby FMedSci FRS is joining the panel discussion with Dr Md Zakiul Hassan.

Professor Sir Peter Horby is Director, Pandemic Sciences Institute and Moh Family Foundation Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Global Health, University of Oxford. Over the last 20 years he has led research on a wide range of emerging and epidemic infections, including SARS, avian influenza, Ebola, Lassa fever, plague and COVID-19. He is Director of the Pandemic Sciences Institute, an interdisciplinary research institute at the University of Oxford with a mission to discover, create and enable practical, science-driven solutions to infectious disease threats worldwide. Peter is a regular advisor to the UK Government and the World Health Organization.

Dr Md Zakiul Hassan is designing a clinical development plan for Nipah virus therapeutics under the supervision of Professor Piero Olliaro and Professor Sir Peter Horby. He is a University of Oxford Clarendon scholar and the first Oxford-MoH Foundation DPhil Scholar. The Reuben Foundation and the NDM studentship also fund his DPhil.

Doors open at 18:00.