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June 13, 2023Northants TelegraphThe Kettering-born professor who created a life-changing vaccine has accepted an international award from a worldwide women’s organisation at a homecoming lunch in her honour.Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert, co-developer of the Oxford–AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, was nominated by Kettering Inner Wheel lunchtime group members for the Margarette Golding Award to mark her achievement.Inner Wheel members gathered alongside members of Kettering High School Old Girls Association, church representatives and members of Kettering Operatic Society to welcome the Kettering-educated scientist ‘home’ yesterday (Monday) at Kettering Park Hotel.Much in demand, Professor Gilbert squeezed in the ceremony and a talk about her work before jetting off to the USA to teach in Boston.And it was one of her Kettering teachers who inspired her and holiday jobs based in Kettering that she says are her fondest memories.She told the Northants Telegraph: “I had a very inspirational teacher called Mrs Slater. She didn’t always stick to what we were supposed to be learning – she was an inspiration for me.\"It’s quite a long time since I’ve been back to Kettering. My mum passed away in 2017 and my father lived in Corby.\"I have fond memories of Wicksteed Park. I worked there in the holidays for two seasons selling fish and chips and ice creams.”My dad used to be a manager at Loake so I also did some work in the factory. I always wanted to be a skiver but I wasn’t allowed. I can still remember the smell of the leather.”Awarded a Damehood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2021 for her ground-breaking work, she was also awarded the Albert Medal by the Royal Society of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce – her name now standing alongside Marie Curie, Winston Churchill and Stephen Hawkins.Thanking The Inner Wheel at the awards ceremony event, Professor Gilbert said: “It’s quite overwhelming. We just did our jobs.”Joint presidents Pat Smith and Lesley Johnson welcomed Professor Gilbert and handed over the certificate and a special lapel badge. She will also receive a special rose.Mrs Smith said: “We are really really delighted that Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert is here. We are very proud of the fact that she was educated in Kettering.”Mrs Johnson added: “It shows that it doesn’t matter where you come from. She came from a very ordinary family and she has achieved all this – it’s about tenacity. She’s very keen to say it’s about a team effort. When you think about how many people have had the vaccine, it’s incredible.”The first Margarette Golding Award (MGA) – an award be created in honour of the founder of the Inner Wheel – is awarded for highly commendable personal service through Inner Wheel or in the community.The award has been available since September 2001 and more than 200 people have now received an MGA.Ann Buckby, secretary of Kettering Inner Wheel, said: “Sarah is a woman whose life work is determined to help other. We at Kettering Inner Wheel are so proud of this daughter of our town.”She is now wholly engaged on working on vaccines, to keep check on the many variants that are appearing throughout the world.”

8 March, 2023The International Vaccine Institute (IVI) and SK bioscience jointly announced Profs. Andrew Pollard / Sarah Gilbert and Rino Rappuoli / Mariagrazia Pizza as two groups of co-recipients of the second IVI – SK bioscience Park ManhHoon Award.The IVI-SK bioscience Park MahnHoon Award annually honors up to two individuals and/or groups that have made extraordinary contributions to the discovery, development and delivery of vaccines and the advancement of global health. The award was launched in 2022 to commemorate the legacy of the late Vice Chairman Dr. Park MahnHoon of SK bioscience. This year’s award ceremony is scheduled to take place at IVI on April 25, the second anniversary of Dr. Park’s death. SK bioscience contributes funding for two 100 million Korean won (approx. US$85,000) annual prizes to IVI for the awards.“IVI, jointly with SK bioscience, is pleased to announce the selection of the winners of the second set of IVI-SKBS Park MahnHoon awards.  The award recipients are Profs. Andrew Pollard and Sarah Gilbert for their work on COVID-19 and other critical global health and emerging disease vaccines and Drs. Rino Rappuoli and Mariagrazia Pizza for their development of new, more scientific approaches to the development of all vaccines,” said Dr. Jerome Kim, Director General of IVI. “These two groups of vaccine champions have spearheaded the development of vaccines against COVID-19 and meningitis, respectively, which have saved numerous lives and advanced vaccine science and global public health.”Prof. Andrew Pollard, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Oxford, led the clinical development of the Oxford/AZ COVID-19 vaccine across 3 continents, one of the first and most widely administered vaccines in the fight against the pandemic. He has conducted extensive clinical, basic and epidemiological research crucial to the understanding of the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases and has led pioneering work on meningococcal, pneumococcal, typhoid and COVID-19 vaccines which underpins global policy on immunization against these diseases.Prof. Sarah Gilbert, Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford and a co-inventor of the Oxford/AZ vaccine, was the driving force behind the creation of this novel adenoviral vectored COVID vaccine. More than 3.1 billion doses of the vaccine have been released for supply to over 180 countries, including over 580 million doses that were made available to COVAX for low- and middle-income countries, or about 31 percent of all COVAX supplies. As a leader of vaccine advocacy she is also the author of the book ‘Vaxxers: The Inside Story of the Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine and the Race Against the Virus.’ Her work also focuses on the rapid transfer of vaccines into GMP manufacturing and first in human trials as part of efforts to accelerate the development and introduction of new vaccines.Dr. Rino Rappuoli and Dr. Mariagrazia Pizza jointly pioneered a new more scientific approach to vaccine development – “reverse vaccinology” that takes what we understand about the viral and bacterial pathogens and immune responses against them to design an optimal vaccine candidate. Using this approach they developed a new vaccine against the Type B meningococcus, a devastating infection of the nervous system that occurs most commonly in infants aged under 1 year, as well as children and adolescents. This vaccine is now licensed (Bexero) and has shown to be highly efficacious in preventing the disease.  Dr. Rappuoli is now the Scientific Director of Biotecnopolo di Siena Foundation in Italy and was formerly the Chief Scientist at GSK Vaccines,  His extensive contributions to vaccinology also include a molecule, CRM197, that today is the most widely used carrier for vaccines against H. influenzae, N. meningitidis and pneumococcus, and is used to vaccinate most children worldwide.Dr. Mariagrazia Pizza is former Senior Scientific Director Bacterial Vaccines at GSK. In the 1980s, she took on a project aimed at designing genetically detoxified pertussis toxin. This research led to the identification of a genetically detoxified pertussis toxin as the antigen ideal for a new vaccine for being devoid of toxicity but highly immunogenic. In 1999, she became the project leader for the identification of new Meningococcus B antigens using the ‘reverse vaccinology’ approach. This allowed the development of the MenB vaccine, which has been licensed in more than 40 countries worldwide.Dr. Christian Mandl, chair of the IVI -SK bioscience Park MahnHoon Award Selection Committee (and IVI’s Scientific Advisory Group), said, “I had the privilege of joining some 10 leading vaccine experts on the Selection Committee to evaluate the qualifications of world-renowned vaccinologists and global health leaders to single out the awardees. These awardees deserve global recognition for their exceptional contributions to vaccine research, the development and testing of novel vaccines, the discovery of breakthrough technologies, and the impact these vaccines have had on the health of people everywhere.”Dr. Hun Kim, Global R&BD President of SK bioscience, said, “Vaccine development is a task that must be carried out with the single goal of promoting the health of humanity by overcoming the fear of uncertainties and long time required. By building upon the spirit of the late Vice Chairman Park MahnHoon who made significant contributions to the global health sector, SK bioscience will continue to take the lead in developing vaccines and ensuring equitable vaccine supply in collaboration with IVI.”

January 04, 2023GlobeNewswireJeddah, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 04, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Two women scientists were announced King Faisal Prize for Medicine and Science laureates for 2023: a Covid-19 vaccine developer and a nanotechnology scientist. Six others were announced King Faisal Prize laureates for having enriched humanity with key and invaluable achievements and discoveries in the fields of Medicine, Science, Arabic Language & Literature, Islamic Studies, and Serving Islam.   The woman behind Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Professor Sarah Gilbert, the Saïd Chair of Vaccinology in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at Oxford University, was selected to receive King Faisal Prize in medicine. She has co-created the vaccine which has been in use in more than 180 countries saving billions of lives due to its efficiency, low cost and accessibility.The vaccine is called “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19” and was achieved in 10 months of work using a novel approach. Instead of the traditional vaccines’ method which uses a weakened or killed form of the original infection and requires a long time to develop in the human body, Gilbert genetically modified a weakened version of a common virus which caused a cold in chimpanzees to be injected in humans without causing an infection. This modified virus became the essence of the vaccine developed by Dr. Gilbert against coronavirus carrying the genetic instructions for the coronavirus spike protein. When entering the body cells, the virus uses a genetic code or instructions to produce the specific surface spike protein of the coronavirus inducing an immune response and preparing the immune system to attack coronavirus if it infects the body.Dr. Gilbert’s innovative vaccine technologies used lately for COVID-19 were also applied by her to Malaria, Ebola, Influenza, and MERS, with clinical trials of the latter taking place in the UK and in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She also worked on developing a medicine for it. In fact, the patented ChAdOx1 technology was developed by Dr. Gilbert and other researchers at the University of Oxford in 2012. In 2014, she led the first trial of an Ebola vaccine after a large outbreak of the disease in West Africa. It was because of the ChAdOx1 technology and her accumulated research that the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine was produced so quickly.The other woman scientist selected to receive King Faisal Prize in science is Professor Jackie Yi-Ru Ying; the A*STAR Senior Fellow and Director at NanoBio Lab, Agency for Science, Technology, and Research.Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 04, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Two women scientists were announced King Faisal Prize for Medicine and Science laureates for 2023: a Covid-19 vaccine developer and a nanotechnology scientist. Six others were announced King Faisal Prize laureates for having enriched humanity with key and invaluable achievements and discoveries in the fields of Medicine, Science, Arabic Language & Literature, Islamic Studies, and Serving Islam.   The woman behind Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Professor Sarah Gilbert, the Saïd Chair of Vaccinology in the Nuffield Department of Medicine at Oxford University, was selected to receive King Faisal Prize in medicine. She has co-created the vaccine which has been in use in more than 180 countries saving billions of lives due to its efficiency, low cost and accessibility.The vaccine is called “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19” and was achieved in 10 months of work using a novel approach. Instead of the traditional vaccines’ method which uses a weakened or killed form of the original infection and requires a long time to develop in the human body, Gilbert genetically modified a weakened version of a common virus which caused a cold in chimpanzees to be injected in humans without causing an infection. This modified virus became the essence of the vaccine developed by Dr. Gilbert against coronavirus carrying the genetic instructions for the coronavirus spike protein. When entering the body cells, the virus uses a genetic code or instructions to produce the specific surface spike protein of the coronavirus inducing an immune response and preparing the immune system to attack coronavirus if it infects the body.Dr. Gilbert’s innovative vaccine technologies used lately for COVID-19 were also applied by her to Malaria, Ebola, Influenza, and MERS, with clinical trials of the latter taking place in the UK and in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. She also worked on developing a medicine for it. In fact, the patented ChAdOx1 technology was developed by Dr. Gilbert and other researchers at the University of Oxford in 2012. In 2014, she led the first trial of an Ebola vaccine after a large outbreak of the disease in West Africa. It was because of the ChAdOx1 technology and her accumulated research that the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine was produced so quickly.The other woman scientist selected to receive King Faisal Prize in science is Professor Jackie Yi-Ru Ying; the A*STAR Senior Fellow and Director at NanoBio Lab, Agency for Science, Technology, and Research.

August 24, 2022The Royal SocietyResearchers, technicians, students and support staff responsible for the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have been awarded the Royal Society’s Copley Medal for their rapid development and deployment of a vaccine against Covid-19.This is the first time in the nearly 300-year history of the Copley Medal that it has been awarded to a team.As the latest recipients of the Society’s most prestigious award, the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Team will join figures recognised for their exceptional contributions to science, including Louis Pasteur, Dorothy Hodgkin, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell.Accepting the Copley Medal on behalf of the team*, Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert DBE, Saïd Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford, said: “It is wonderful to receive this recognition for the team that developed the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. “When work started on the vaccine in 2020, we needed to bring together people with complementary expertise to allow us to move quickly and plan many stages ahead. Many people worked extremely hard for a very long time, and winning this prize lets the whole team know how much their dedication is appreciated.”Other recipients of the Society’s 2022 prizes awarded for their involvement in the Covid-19 pandemic include Professor Sir Jonathan Van-Tam MBE FMedSci, who receives the David Attenborough Award and Lecture for his public engagement work, and Professor Graham Medley OBE who was awarded the Gabor Medal, in recognition of his team’s epidemiological modelling contributions.The Royal Society introduced two new annual prizes in 2022, celebrating the work of technicians and those who work to improve research culture. A number of winners this year showcase these wider contributions to the scientific effort:University of Nottingham chemistry research technician, Neil Barnes, receives the inaugural Hauksbee Award, in recognition of his role in supporting generations of physical chemists as a research technician, including as a demonstrator on the YouTube chemistry channel, Periodic Videos.Dr Diane Saunders, John Innes Centre, is awarded the Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture, for her mentoring project to empower female undergraduate and early career researchers in plant sciences.Dr Mark Richards, Imperial College London, is recognised for his commitment to increasing equity in physics through the development of the UK’s first network of Black physicists, the Blackett Lab Family, with the inaugural Royal Society Research Culture Award. The UCL STEM Participation and Social Justice team, is aiming to make STEM more inclusive, accessible and equitable for all young people, and receive the Athena Prize.Sir Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society said, “On behalf of the Royal Society, I offer my congratulations to the outstanding researchers, individuals and teams whose contributions to our collective scientific endeavour have helped further our understanding of the world around us.\"Science has always been a team game, and I’m proud to see such a wide array of skills and specialisms reflected in this year’s medals and awards.“From the original ideas that open up new fields, to the team effort that delivered the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, or the vital work of technicians and those opening doors for the next generation of talented researchers – I am proud that we can celebrate outstanding scientific contributions in all their forms.”(The Royal Society)

June 26, 2022The Guardian(Gilbert with her Barbie doll. Photograph: Andy Paradise/REX/Shutterstock)The woman who co-developed the AstraZeneca vaccine on reassuring doubters, her new book and having a baby penguin named after her.   Dame Sarah Gilbert, 60, is a professor of vaccinology at Oxford’s Jenner Institute and author, with Catherine Green, head of Oxford University’s clinical biomanufacturing facility, of Vaxxers – a gripping narrative about developing the AstraZeneca vaccine that is wonderfully accessible and illuminating without dumbing down the science. She lives in Oxford with her husband and grownup triplets.   Another wave of Covid-19 is reported to be on its way. To what extent are you able to anticipate what the virus will do next and prepare? Anticipating what the virus will do next is the job of those who do surveillance in epidemiology. But if a new sequence is thought to be becoming dominant, our problem is that making a new version of the vaccine takes time and has to be tested and approved. What’s been happening, as we go through one wave after another, is that the virus has been too quick. Regulators cannot approve a vaccine unless they can see the clinical data, then you have to scale up manufacturing to produce the vaccine in quantity. Developers are still using the original vaccines, which are supplying good protection against the disease.   In your book, you answer the fear, felt by some people, that the vaccine was produced too quickly. We moved from vaccine production to licensure as quickly as possible. But every single thing we normally do when developing a vaccine was done, it was just that we worked very hard to cut out all delays in that process. This was only possible because there was one project in the world that everyone cared about and regulators were able to remove bottlenecks in their process.   The vaccine was presented in the media as a competition between manufacturers. When we started, nobody had any certainty over what would work; it was important to have as many options in development as possible. We had multiple successful vaccines, which was wonderful. Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca were licensed for emergency use early and yet there were still shortages in vaccine production.   Your book powerfully reassures vaccine doubters. I wonder if you agree that the psychology behind the vaccine-averse might partly be in reaction to months of being told how to live, or not live – and be a wish to reclaim control? There might be something in that. In some countries, people do not want to be vaccinated because their government recommends it and they don’t trust their government. I don’t think that was a feature in the UK because, whatever people’s view on government, they recognise the input of the NHS. But a lot of the hesitancy among younger people was because they were receiving misinformation, sometimes through friends whose opinions they trusted.   Is there any risk that Covid-19, instead of becoming more transmissible and less deadly, might return as a more severe variant? The truth is we don’t know where Covid-19 is going next. It could continue to become milder or it could become a more severe disease again.   Are we over-reliant on the vaccine’s efficacy in the UK and becoming slipshod in no longer wearing face masks? Do you still wear a mask? I’ve more or less stopped. I had about a year of always following the guidance. But recently, there hasn’t been any guidance. I’ve travelled on the tube without a mask. I got Covid, for the first time, about 10 days ago. It was like having an unpleasant cold and didn’t worry me. It only lasted a few days and I was fine again.   To what extent was having triplets good preparation for the stamina you’ve needed professionally? If you’ve been through having triplets, you realise that when the chips are down and you have to do something, you can. People often do more than they expect of themselves – when there’s a need to find the strength and energy to get a job done.   What was your most stressful moment? Ironically, it was when we got the efficacy result in November 2020. It was complicated because there were different levels of efficacy in different parts of the trial. Everybody had been working flat out for months and was very tired. Those leading the project had to go into pretty gruelling media interviews. I was doing two hours of back-to-back 15-minute interviews without a break. It was wonderful to have the result but having to explain it was challenging.   And yet somehow you found time to write a book. I’d do it whenever I had a spare moment. A small part of it, I dictated as I was walking. I sometimes walk to work when the weather is nice as it gives my brain a rest and nobody can interrupt me.   It must have been hard for your family having you consumed by work. It’s difficult to take any time away from the job I do. I find it really hard to switch off. I need to get better at that. It was difficult for all of us – they did whatever they could to support me.   Oxford has made you a professor of vaccinology – it must be a delight to have that recognition. I’ve had the title from 2010 but now have an endowed chair. It’s very gratifying but none of the people who work for me have secure jobs, so I’m still raising funds to keep them in post. I’m recruiting staff for my research group (on vaccines that are not for Covid and on vaccine technology) and am very, very busy. We’ve lost a lot of staff who are exhausted and no longer willing to put up with short-term, not particularly well-paid jobs. The funding really needs to change though I don’t see any short-term prospect of it getting better.   You’ve had a Barbie doll named after you – what does she look like? And a baby penguin at London Zoo? I can show you [she produces a bespectacled Barbie with straight red hair, face mask dangling from her hand]. Can you see? She’s not a bad likeness and – look – I really like her little mask. I’ve visited the baby penguin and fed it some fish – that was quite fun.   You have a mug saying “Keep calm and develop vaccines”. Who gave it to you? It was a Secret Santa present at work. The mug is now with the Science Museum in London. But I want to show you something else: my daughter embroidered this [a little sampler with the same message stitched in place].   I’ve read that you keep calm and garden when you can – how is your garden doing? Really, really bad. It’s been overtaken by weeds. It’s a small garden and because of being busy all my life, I designed it to be low-maintenance, but it does require some intervention and recently hasn’t had any.   Your book sees a new pandemic as a future certainty. What should we do differently next time around? We need to be better prepared in many different areas. In vaccine development, there are viruses we already know can cause disease outbreaks, yet we don’t yet have a vaccine against them. We should be developing vaccines now against all those and having them ready so that if there is an outbreak, we’ve got the vaccine to cope with it.

Yahoo Finance2022.03.30(Picture: Yahoo Finance(Lee Atherton))Five brilliant scientists whose development of the AstraZeneca vaccine saved countless lives across the world in the Covid 19 pandemic were collectively honoured in Oxford this week.In an affecting ceremony at the Sheldonian Theatre on Monday the quintet received trophies commemorating their work from the hands of the University Chancellor Lord Patten.They came in the shape of ceramic cups commissioned from artist Edmund de Waal by the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival, now in its 25th year and continuing in an ambitious program till Sunday.The awards, the festival’s first for science and innovation, went to the Oxford Vaccine Group leader Prof Sir Andrew Pollard, the SAID professor of vaccinology Dame Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology and immunology Teresa Lambe, Prof Catherine Green of the Nuffield Department of Medicine’s clinical biomanufacturing facility and Sir John Bell, the Regius Professor of Medicine.Lord Patten said the immense value of their work could not be overestimated, nor should it be overlooked that three of the five were women.While Oxford held its place in the annals of scientific endeavour in the development, for instance, of penicillin, the creation of the AstraZeneca vaccine “rated with the greatest things that this university has ever achieved”.Measured against the huge value of their work, he said that the modesty of the scientists was remarkable.The packed audience at the Sheldonian gave a standing ovation to the five, whohad answered questions on their work from the journalist and broadcaster Nick Higham.Paying further tributes to them all was the Swedish Ambassador Mikaela Kumlin Granit.Her presence recognised the Anglo-Swedish nature of drugs giant AstraZeneca, whose ‘no profit’ approach to supplying a billion-plus doses of the vaccine brought worldwide acclaim.