Drew Weissman, MD, PhD, is the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research and director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation in Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. He is recognized for his work alongside Katalin Karikó in discovering the modified mRNA technology, which has launched a new era of vaccine development. Their mRNA research breakthrough has been used in both the BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines and has revolutionized the field of vaccine development. Dr. Weissman’s current research focuses on developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine to stop the next coronavirus epidemic, a universal flu vaccine, cancer therapeutics, and a vaccine to prevent herpes. Dr. Weissman earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biochemistry and enzymology from Brandeis University in 1981 and his MD and PhD in immunology and microbiology in 1987 at Boston University School of Medicine. Following a residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, he took a fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, where he worked with Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Weissman hold many patents and has published over 200 papers. He has been recognized with numerous awards including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, and the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology.

Learning Objectives:

  1. Understand the mechanisms for how mRNA-LNP vaccines function
  2. Learn about in vivo targeting of LNPs
  3. Understand developing therapeutics using in vivo targeted mRNA-LNPs

Speaker:

  • Drew Weissman, MD, PhD

This seminar was delivered as a Pediatric Grand Rounds Lecture at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, on September 11, 2024.

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  • Course Certificate
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