Abstract:

In this talk I will present a series of vignettes based on the use of coronavirus pseudotype platform technologies for the study of many different facets of the COVID pandemic. This includes application to seroprevalence, vaccine immunogenicity and VOCs, mAb efficacy, WHO antibody standards, immunocompromised population protection, correlation with live virus, electrostatic precipitation and seasonal coronaviruses. The “once in a lifetime” opportunity to establish and roll out this technology to multiple national and international stakeholders during an unfolding global pandemic presents a framework for application to other viruses of pandemic potential including Disease X.

Biography:  

Jonathan Heeney qualified with Doctoral degrees in Veterinary Medicine, Veterinary Pathology (U of Guelph, Canada) and a PhD at the National Institutes of Health in the USA under the supervision of Stephen O’Brien, prior to his appointment as a Fellow in Pathology at the Stanford School of Medicine. He received his Doctor of Science at Cambridge University and in 2007 established the Lab of Viral Zoonotics (LVZ) in Cambridge which focusses on the cross-species transmission of viruses, their co-evolution in different hosts and the immune mechanisms of disease and disease protection. The LVZ applies the understanding of immune correlates of protection to develop vaccines to prevent the transmission of zoonotic infections at the animal human interface.

Translationally data on immune correlates of protection is applied to the rational design of next generation, broadly protective vaccines for the prevention of epidemics caused by continuously evolving RNA viruses. In 2017 he founded the vaccine Biotech DIOSynVax to take his vaccine discoveries through to clinical development and licensure. Vaccine candidates include a multivalent vaccine covering Mpox and Haemorrhagic Fevers, a multivalent Beta-Coronavirus vaccine as well a vaccines for Seasonal and pre-pandemic Influenza.