Four exceptional innovators in the field of vaccination introduce their work on some of the world's biggest medical challenges, and discuss the scope and scale of vaccine development and its importance for global health.
Dr Julia Fan Li is CEO of Micrographia Bio, a London-based venture backed company working at the intersection of software and biology. Our proprietary technology mines multidimensional data acquired during pharmaceutical research. Whereas traditional drug discovery asks the question: “which of these million molecules can cure this specific disease?” We ask the opposite question: "given this specific chemical compound, which disease is it best suited to cure?". By mapping each chemical to its true activity, we are engineering the chemical atlas for modern drug discovery. If Micrographia had existed 12 months ago, we would have a potential therapeutic candidate for COVID-19 in real time.
Samir Ali Khan [2007 - https://www.gatescambridge.org/members-area/connect/directory/scholar/6082] did his PhD in Pharmacology. Co-founder of Lighthouse Innovations: an Oxford-based innovation and access strategy house advising health start-ups and entrepreneurs on market access, pricing and payer value strategy within and beyond the NHS in the UK. Samir has previously advised top 10 FTSE global life sciences and healthcare companies and >50 start-ups on market access strategy for drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and AI. He is also a co-inventor of a vaccine candidate for Hepatitis E in India and drug targets in neurological and cardiovascular diseases in the UK.
Emma Glennon is an infectious disease epidemiologist who examines why new diseases emerge, working at the intersections of ecology, data science, and the social and economic determinants of disease. She is interested in how technology in an unequal world can counteract or contribute to the spread of disease. She has worked on epidemiological research and outbreak response around the world, including in the UK, India, Australia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Dan Storisteanu is a co-founder of Simprints, where he focuses on research, testing, and deployment of a biometric system for global health applications. In his work with another Cambridge start-up, DIOSynVax, Dan supports efforts to develop Ebola, influenza, and Covid vaccines. He is a Research Fellow at Darwin College, University of Cambridge and a Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur.
Dan Davis is Professor of Immunology at the University of Manchester and author of The Beautiful Cure.
