Vaccine prospects for COVID-19: learnings from a 40-year biotech journey that’s still in progress

I have been in biotech research one way or another for over 40 years. This strange time of quarantine and self-isolation during the COVID-19 outbreak has given me time to reflect on how lessons from past vaccine programs bear on the current moment.

While it’s been rewarding to see many of the technologies I grew up with leading to vaccine candidates against the new virus, what’s often missing from the conversation is a discussion of antigen selection and the quality of the immune response required to confer meaningful protection...