This semester, the MIT MBG Industry Initiative organized a seminar on Vaccine Development. We had individuals from BioNTech, Moderna, Elicio, and Illumina come chat with members about the vaccine development that is underway in their companies and where they believe there are opportunities fro therapeutic development. Vaccine development came into the spotlight during with COVID-19 pandemic and industry efforts since then have enabled a wide range of vaccines, from those that mitigate the spread of infectious diseases to those that bolster the immune system’s anti-cancer response in cancer patients. Our seminars discussed topics such as strategies to engineer a more efficacious vaccine, designing a clinical trial for personalized cancer vaccines, and how to develop vaccines that are effective across diverse, global populations. Many audience members mentioned that they are interested in or already working in research areas that relate to vaccine development. We are looking forward to more thought-provoking seminars next semester on topics in drug development.
