Mount Sinai’s Master’s Commencement—Celebrating Resilience and Achievement

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, School

Neha B. Pannuri, MPH, one of 147 candidates receiving a degree from Mount Sinai

The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai conferred 147 master’s degrees in eight programs during a recent ceremony, an interactive virtual event that recapped a year of great challenges and extraordinary achievement. In 2020, the Graduate School added a ninth master’s program, in epidemiology, which will graduate its first cohort in 2022.

Pediatrician, scientist, and activist Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH, Founder and Director of the Michigan State University-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative, received an honorary Doctor of Science degree for playing a pivotal role in helping to uncover the Flint, Michigan, water crisis. Dr. Hanna-Attisha also delivered the commencement address.

Marta Filizola, PhD

Graduate School Dean Marta Filizola, PhD, greeted the graduates and guests, saying, “This pandemic is the latest we have seen, but it is not the first,” and recounting “some of the things that really are unprecedented about our times.” Dr. Filizola is also the Sharon & Frederick A. Klingenstein/Nathan G. Kase, MD Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, and Professor of Neuroscience.

“The world is undeniably more complex today than ever before—interactions of people and nature with sophisticated technologies and human-made systems, taking place in a world of unprecedented population size and unprecedented levels of interdependence,” she said. “This is the reality that presents us with immense challenges.”

Yet, she continued, “What is also unprecedented is the extent of the cooperation, compassion, and teamwork we must bring to bear on these challenges. The breadth of professional training and expertise the world calls for is the reason our graduates today represent such a diversity of degree programs, training areas, and specialty tracks.”

Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD

Presiding over the ceremony was Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Director of The Friedman Brain Institute, Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs, and Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience. “The fact that you are all here today is testimony to your fortitude and impressive resilience. Today’s master’s graduates exemplify the full range of expertise that our society has needed to combat and overcome the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said. “We are very proud of your inspiring accomplishments at Mount Sinai, and look forward to all the good that you will do as you embark on your exciting careers.”

Dr. Hanna-Attisha gave a heartfelt speech that drew on her own experience in public health, and she exhorted the graduates to be fearless leaders.

“We need tough graduates like you,” she told them. “Fueled by the power of this place, the engine of knowledge and innovation, you are the light that will illuminate some of our hardest and greatest challenges. You, and especially the field of science, will be on the front lines of some of the most important battlegrounds of society today.”

Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, MPH

“My story, the Flint, Michigan, story, is a story not unlike our current crisis, about failing to respect science and public health, and failing to protect the most vulnerable among us,” she said. “Remember—somewhere, somehow, sometime in your life—you will have to make a choice. The issue may not be as momentous as a poisoning of a town, but there are Flints everywhere, there are injustices everywhere, there are places and people that will need you to open your eyes and take action and to do the hard things. I urge you to keep your eyes open, to stay vigilant, to remain curious, to take action, to keep doing the hard things for the right reasons.”

Student speaker Meghan Smith, who received a Master of Public Health, spoke of the perseverance and compassion of this unique graduating class, and the hope that they represent.

“At the onset of the pandemic, and this very dark period of time, many people were at a paralyzing low. Incredibly, the students channeled all of these emotions and possessed the strength to step up,” she said, citing the medical- and graduate-student COVID-19 workforce, and other efforts around New York City to support clinical and research efforts. “At one point, it seemed like every student I knew, across all programs, was doing something to help the devastation this nation had witnessed.”

Meghan Smith, MPH

And, as the “country began to recognize the racism and oppression that has existed as part of our society for hundreds of years,” she continued, “powerful social justice movements inspired all of us to make our voices heard.”

With robust optimism, Ms. Smith concluded: “As we embark on our journeys, not knowing what challenges we may face, I know we will all continue to be the people who are willing to step up.”

Why a master’s degree? Read more about the experiences and aspirations of our outstanding graduates and students.

2021 Jacobi Medallion Award Ceremony

Jul 8, 2021 | Alumni, Featured


The Mount Sinai Alumni Association and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai presented accomplished physicians and researchers with the 2021 Jacobi Medallion, one of Mount Sinai’s highest awards, in a virtual ceremony on Tuesday, June 22.

The recipients of the Jacobi Medallion are those physicians and faculty members that have made exceptional contributions to the Mount Sinai Health System, Icahn Mount Sinai, the Mount Sinai Alumni Association, or the fields of medicine or biomedicine.

Watch the ceremony video or read the digital program

These are the recipients of the 2021 Jacobi Medallion:

 2021 JACOBI MEDALLION RECIPIENTS:

JUDITH A. ABERG, MD

Dr. George Baehr Professor of Clinical Medicine

Dean, System Operations for Clinical Sciences

Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai Health System

Watch a video of Dr. Aberg

DONALD A. BERGMAN, MD, MSH ’77

Clinical Professor, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease, Department of Medicine

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Watch a video of Dr. Bergman

ANA FERNANDEZ-SESMA, PHD, MSSM ’98

Professor, Department of Microbiology

Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Mount Sinai Health System

Watch a video of Dr. Fernandez-Sesma

EVAN L. FLATOW, MD

Bernard J. Lasker Professor of Orthopaedics

President, Mount Sinai West, Mount Sinai Health System

Professor, Leni & Peter W. May Department of Orthopedic Surgery

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Watch a video of Dr. Flatow

RONALD H. HOFFMAN, MD, MSH ’76

Albert A. and Vera G. List Professor of Medicine

Director, Myeloproliferative Disorder Research Program

The Tisch Cancer Institute

Professor, Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Watch a video of Dr. Hoffman

ELIZABETH A. HOWELL, MD, MPP

Harrison McCrea Dickson President’s Distinguished Professor

Chair, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Perelman School of Medicine

University of Pennsylvania Health System

Watch a video of Dr. Howell

JOY S. GAYLINN REIDENBERG, PHD, MSSM ’88

Professor, Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, Department of Medical Education

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Watch a video of Dr. Reidenberg

LESLIE E. SCHNEIER, MBA, MPH

Dean for Faculty Affairs and Administration

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Watch a video of Dr. Schneier

PHYLLIS A. SCHNEPF, MS

Dean for Education and Research Administration

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Watch a video of Dr. Schnepf

JUAN PABLO WISNIVESKY, MD, DRPH

Drs. Richard and Mortimer Bader Professor of Medicine

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine, Mount Sinai Health System

Watch a video of Dr. Wisnivesky

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Pandemic’s Toll on Mount Sinai Front-Line Staff Is Surveyed, and Addressed

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | COVID-19, Featured, Mental Health, Psychiatry, Research

Recharge rooms were created across the Health System in one of many initiatives informed by surveys of front-line staff.

Front-line staff who were already feeling burnout showed the most signs of mental distress during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, while those who fared best had an active social network and felt supported by their supervisors. These were among the many lessons learned by a team of Mount Sinai researchers based on two surveys of front-line Mount Sinai staff in 2020.

“The main takeaway is what most people would expect—that if you’re involved in health care during a pandemic, it’s going to take its toll,” says Jonathan Ripp, MD, MPH, Dean for Well-Being and Resilience and Chief Wellness Officer at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “But beyond that, we were able to identify what types of things may put you at greater or lesser risk of these mental health outcomes, and inform how we can try to mitigate them.”

The results were used in real time to develop programs to help Mount Sinai staff handle the pressures of the pandemic, Dr. Ripp says, and they are being shared with other institutions through journal publications and a Well-Being Toolkit developed by the Office of Well-Being and Resilience.

The three mental health outcomes studied were depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among the more than 3,000 front-line staff members who responded to an initial survey in April and May 2020, 39 percent screened positive for at least one of these outcomes. The most significant factor predicting mental health symptoms was the presence of pre-pandemic burnout, according to studies published by the Mount Sinai team in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry and Chronic Stress.

At the start of the pandemic, Mount Sinai focused on meeting the basic needs of front-line staff, such as providing free or subsidized food onsite.

“This means that if you already felt exhausted, fatigued, and detached from your work, you were more likely to develop these mental health symptoms during the pandemic,” says investigator Lauren Peccoralo, MD, MPH, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Well-Being and Development, and Associate Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The research team emphasized that burnout is distinct from other mental health issues in that it is more a function of the work environment, and can be remedied by strategies that support workers.

In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Office of Well-Being and Resilience assembled a group of researchers with backgrounds in psychology, psychiatry, survey design, and statistical analysis to examine its mental health consequences on the workforce, in an effort initiated by Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System.

The group sent surveys to more than 6,000 physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, and other front-line staff at The Mount Sinai Hospital during the height of the pandemic’s first wave in April and May 2020 and again seven months later. In the first survey, more than 3,000 respondents answered questions from three diagnostic series: the General Anxiety Disorder 7, the Personal Health Questionnaire 8, and the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder checklist. In the self-screening for depression, for example, about 26 percent of respondents reported that on more than half the days of the week, they felt such symptoms as taking little interest or pleasure in doing things, feeling hopeless, losing their appetite, having trouble staying or falling asleep, or difficulty concentrating.

The survey also asked open-ended questions about the respondents’ concerns. “There were a lot of infection-related worries. People were worried about PPE, about infecting colleagues or bringing COVID-19 home to their family members,” says Jordyn Feingold, MD, an investigator in the study, who graduated from Icahn Mount Sinai in May 2020 and is now a psychiatry resident. “There were worries about basic needs like getting food at work, and existential worries like ‘When is this going to end?’ and ‘When is life going to return back to normal?’”

The aid facilitated by the research team fell into three categories: providing basic needs like food and the proper personal protective equipment (PPE) and other materials; providing up-to-date information through channels including web sites and system-wide email broadcasts; and creating well-being spaces and onsite mental health and peer support to reduce the stress experienced by health care workers.

A Second Survey Finds an Increase in Burnout

The surveys also asked questions related to resilience, Dr. Ripp says. Specific factors that were found to be protective against mental health symptoms included getting enough sleep and exercise, having social emotional support, not using substances to cope, having sufficient PPE, and feeling supported by hospital leadership and valued by supervisors.

Simply feeling heard was also important, Dr. Feingold says. “Whether or not we have it in our control to fix all of these things right away,” she says, “just validating the concerns and letting people know that they’re not experiencing this in isolation, I think was really powerful.”

In the second survey, conducted from November 2020 to January 2021, more than 1,600 responded and of those, 786 staff provided follow-up responses on their mental health and well-being. The results indicate that mental health symptoms have declined, but the prevalence of burnout has increased, Dr. Peccoralo says. “We are still analyzing the data, but one thought is that the traumatic situation has largely gone away, but the work hasn’t. We’re all still working really hard, maybe even harder than we have ever worked before,” she says. “So we have to think about how we can tell if we are pushing people too much, and what we can do about it.”

The surveys have served an important role in helping Mount Sinai take care of its own, and in advancing knowledge of the mental health consequences of responding to a pandemic, Dr. Ripp says.

The needs identified in the surveys have informed the development of new initiatives, including the launch of the Center for Stress, Resilience, and Personal Growth, says its Clinical and Research Director, Jonathan DePierro, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The Center is an innovative service supporting the resilience and psychological health of all Mount Sinai faculty, staff, and trainees through a series of evidence-based resilience workshops, a resilience-promoting app available for download on Sinai Central, ongoing outreach efforts, and up to 14 treatment sessions in its confidential faculty practice.

“Let’s hope that it’s a very long time before something like this pandemic happens again, but should it happen, I think the lessons that we’ve learned can apply,” Dr. Ripp says. “And then of course we can share those lessons, so that other institutions that haven’t had the opportunity to study this trajectory can learn from our experience.”

Read more featured Mount Sinai news.

Tina Aswani Omprakash: A Journey From Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patient, to Patient Advocate, to Master of Public Health Student

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, School

Tina Aswani Omprakash

When Crohn’s disease forced Tina Aswani Omprakash to leave a career on Wall Street, she began looking for a way to rebuild her life. Having navigated the surgeries, the health disparities, and the South Asian cultural stigmas—shame and taboo—associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) for more than a decade, Ms. Aswani Omprakash knew she had insights on IBD that could be beneficial for people of color facing the same challenges.

That revelation led her to the Master of Public Health (MPH) degree program at the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“I chose the program in part because I had heard Mount Sinai was accommodating of students with disabilities, and that was important to me in rebuilding my career and self-worth,” she explains.

 

 

“I gained a knowledge base that expanded my understanding of the disease and gave me insights to approach public health not just from my own personal experience, but from a broader health care perspective.”

A long-time patient advocate and public speaker who has presented at many domestic and international gastroenterology conferences, Ms. Aswani Omprakash is pursuing the General Public Health track to better understand the needs of different patient populations and develop her research skills. In 2020, she conducted a qualitative study, sponsored by the biotechnology company Genentech, on the unmet needs among diverse patients living with IBD. Her abstract was published in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases and presented at the 2021 Crohn’s and Colitis Congress.

“This was a groundbreaking study in that it was the first patient advocate-led study in the IBD space. I hand-picked and recruited patients of various races, ethnicities, genders, age groups, sexual orientations, and geographical locations via my social media presence,” Ms. Aswani Omprakash says. “Although the conclusions we came to were expected, the study helped to legitimize the needs and concerns of patients—such as more access to mental health care, improved access to specialists who understand the complexities of the disease, and better medications that target the disease in different communities.”

For her MPH Applied Practice Experience, Ms. Aswani Omprakash worked with the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust on two projects: a guidebook for caregivers of children and adolescents with Crohn’s disease, created with the National Alliance of Caregiving, and a series of web pages detailing surgical treatment options, which she developed with the United Ostomy Associations of America. “These resources are designed to fill an information gap among health care providers and patients living with IBD, and to change perceptions of surgery as a last resort,” Ms. Aswani Omprakash says. “The fact that they are written by a patient who is earning an MPH further enhances the content.”

Nils Hennig, MD, PhD, MPH, Director of Mount Sinai’s Graduate Program in Public Health says: “Tina Aswani Omprakash is a great example of our patient-focused approach to public health. Proximity to the populations we serve is fundamental. The study of Public Health at Mount Sinai goes beyond mere analysis and repair: it offers choices, it provides a human touch, and it may ultimately help reestablish human dignity.”

Ms. Aswani Omprakash has been completing the program one course at a time and will graduate in December 2022. “This has been an incredible experience,” she says. “I gained a knowledge base that expanded my understanding of the disease and gave me insights to approach public health not just from my own personal experience, but from a broader health care perspective.”

To learn more about Ms. Aswani Omprakash’s patient advocacy journey, go to her blog at ownyourcrohns.com.

 

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What Is the Delta Variant and Why Is It a Concern for Those Who Are Not Vaccinated

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | COVID-19, Featured, Vaccines, Your Health

One of the latest terms to emerge from the pandemic is the Delta variant. This variant appears to be more contagious than previous variants and has become more common in the United States.

In this Q&A, Sean Liu, MD, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases) at the Icahn School of Medicine, says the spread of this variant is concerning because of the number of people who remain unvaccinated.  Those who become infected with this variant pose an elevated risk to household members who are not vaccinated and to others they come in contact with, such as those with compromised immune systems—which includes those with chronic medical conditions and the elderly—who are not able to fight infections as easily as most. Dr. Liu is part of the team of experts at Mount Sinai who are at the forefront of research into vaccines and who are also on the front lines treating patients and helping to limit the spread of the virus in the New York metropolitan area.

Sean Liu, MD, PhD

What is the Delta variant?

All viruses, including the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19, will evolve over time. It is normal for a virus to change a little bit when it makes copies of itself, or replicates. These changes are called mutations. The virus with one or more new mutations is referred to as a variant. Genetic variants of SARS-CoV-2 have been emerging and circulating around the world throughout the COVID 19 pandemic. There are six variants of concern circulating in the United States; the Delta variant is one of these circulating variants. The Delta variant was first detected in December 2020, and recently this variant has been detected in more than 80 countries, and in all 50 states.

Why is there a concern over this variant?

The variants of concern show evidence of at least one of the following five properties:

  • The variant may spread more easily from person to person.
  • The variant may lead to more severe disease, including increased hospitalizations or deaths.
  • The variant may be significantly harder to combat by antibodies generated during a previous infection or vaccination.
  • Treatments or vaccines may show reduced effectiveness against the variant.
  • The variant may evade diagnostic detection.

The Delta variant, specifically, has three of these properties, one being increased transmissibility. There is a 1.6-fold increase in the odds of household transmissions for the Delta variant compared with the Alpha variant, also known as the UK variant.

Why is the issue of transmissibility so important?

The fact that this strain can spread so quickly means is that you have a higher likelihood of spreading the Delta variant if infected. As clinicians, we see a lot of COVID-19 spread throughout families. It’s very devastating among households, and this variant specifically has this increased transmissibility within a household. People who are unvaccinated are really putting their family members, or those in their household, at increased risk for severe disease, especially if they too are unvaccinated.

For those who are fully vaccinated, does the Delta variant pose a risk?

It is important to remember that the goal of the COVID-19 vaccines is to prevent severe infections, hospitalizations, and deaths.  The mRNA-based vaccines are about 95 percent effective against hospitalization for COVID-19, with either one or two doses. Studies suggest that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reduced the odds of symptomatic disease from the Delta variant, which means getting mildly sick, by 36 percent after one dose and 88 percent after two doses. There is, however, no available data about asymptomatic or mild infections with the Delta variant in fully vaccinated people, which means that people can get infected but not show any symptoms. Also, we know that people with underlying medical conditions have died from COVID-19, even after being fully vaccinated. As a result, the Delta variant creates a major concern if there are fully vaccinated people who are in close contact with family or household members or with people who are immunocompromised or have not been vaccinated, including children.

What about those who are not vaccinated?

If you have not been vaccinated yet, you should seriously consider doing so now.  People who have not been vaccinated have a much greater risk of getting seriously ill or dying from COVID-19, especially the Delta variant. Meanwhile, people who are not vaccinated, or who are immunocompromised, should continue to use masks, socially distance to avoid infection especially if you don’t know the status of the individuals around you. If you’re unsure of getting vaccinated, I would encourage you to have discussions with medical professionals who may provide reliable information about the benefits of vaccination. Currently, 44 percent of New York City residents of all ages have not been vaccinated and 34 percent of adults have not been vaccinated in New York City. The distribution of people getting vaccinated is not even. Check out the New York City Department of Health website for the latest information about vaccine availability and vaccination rates.

Why are vaccines important?

The COVID 19 pandemic is a global problem. While vaccines are becoming readily available in the United States, the majority of the world remains unvaccinated. And the pandemic will persist for months, and likely years. Vaccination is our primary means of ending the pandemic. Vaccines are safe and effective. Please consider getting vaccinated, if you are eligible.

 

Read more about vaccines from the experts at Mount Sinai
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Mount Sinai Creates COVID-19 Vaccine for Low- and Middle-lncome Countries

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Research, School

An effective COVID-19 vaccine developed by scientists, from left, Florian Krammer, PhD; Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD; and Peter Palese, PhD, could help ease the shortage of vaccines available to low-and-middle-income countries.

The development of a safe, effective, and inexpensive COVID-19 vaccine that can easily be produced and distributed in low- and middle-income countries is underway at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where early phase 1 clinical testing in Vietnam and Thailand has shown positive results.

The vaccine is the brainchild of three renowned scientists at Mount Sinai—Peter Palese, PhD, Horace W. Goldsmith Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology; Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD, Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine and Director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute; and Florian Krammer, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Vaccinology. By combining their expertise, the scientists—who previously developed a universal influenza vaccine—hope to bring closure to this deadly pandemic by providing less affluent countries with an accessible and cost-effective COVID-19 vaccine they can manufacture themselves.

To date, the World Health Organization has distributed only 90 million vaccine doses to 131 countries, far short of the number needed to stop the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that leads to COVID-19. More contagious variants of the virus will continue to evolve and plague countries around the world as long as their populations remain unvaccinated. “When we protect other countries we protect ourselves, as well,” says Dr. Palese.

Dr. Krammer says, “In North America and Europe many people are getting vaccinated and the virus circulation is going down. But that is not the case in countries in Asia or Latin America, for example. Their COVID-19 case numbers are going up quickly. They need a vaccine and they don’t have access.”

Anticipating this need, Dr. Palese and his colleagues designed Mount Sinai’s COVID-19 vaccine to use the avian Newcastle virus (NDV), and constructed it similarly to an influenza virus vaccine, which can be manufactured in embryonated or fertilized chicken eggs.

Mount Sinai’s COVID-19 vaccine, which would require two doses, could be made using the same influenza vaccine production facilities that many countries already have in place.

The NDV-based vaccine is engineered to express the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2. The construct is injected into an embryonated egg, the virus replicates, and the amplified vaccine virus is then collected, purified, and inactivated. According to Dr. Palese, the resulting vaccine is stable, extraordinarily immunogenic, and induces highly protective immune responses against SARS-CoV-2. Immunogenicity is a measure of the type of immune responses that a vaccine generates and their magnitude over time.

“The beauty of this vaccine is that it can be made using the same influenza vaccine production facilities that many countries already have” in place, Dr. Krammer says. Approximately three billion doses of flu vaccine are produced each year using embryonated eggs.

There are other advantages, as well. Mount Sinai’s Newcastle vector vaccine does not appear to cause any side effects, such as the low-grade fevers, headaches, or pain and swelling at the injection site that are associated with the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccines. The vaccine can also be stored at the same temperature as a home refrigerator, whereas both mRNA vaccines require extra-cold temperatures found only in commercial-grade freezers.

Mount Sinai’s vaccine, says Dr. Palese, can “probably be produced for under one dollar per dose,” and will require two doses spread over 21 days. By comparison, the mRNA vaccines, which also require two doses spread over three to four weeks, cost roughly $50 per dose. To keep costs down, Mount Sinai has agreed to grant licenses for its intellectual property to low- and middle-income countries that produce the vaccine and forgo any royalties on its use.

Dr. Garcia-Sastre says, “Prior to COVID-19, we realized the potential of NDV-based vaccines and for several years optimized this vaccine vector to achieve optimal immunogenicity of the delivered antigen (or toxin). NDV-based vaccines not only have the potential to stop COVID-19 in countries that have no access to the existing SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, but  could be easily tailored to stop future pandemics caused by novel pathogens.”

As phase 2 testing for the vaccine ramps up in Thailand and Vietnam, accelerated phase 1 trials are ongoing in Mexico and Brazil. The trial designs used in these countries should lead to rapid phase 3 results. So far, the scientists say they have been pleased with their phase 1 results and with the tests that have been conducted in animal models.

“You can say that in animals, the vaccine protects beautifully,” says Dr. Krammer. “There is preliminary immunogenicity data that suggests the vaccine induces very good neutralizing titers.”

It is not yet clear whether the current vaccine will need to be updated to protect against aggressive new variants, according to Dr. Krammer. “But if it’s needed, we can change and move quickly to a variant vaccine. It would not be complicated.”

With regard to safety, which is top priority in a phase 1 trial, Dr. Palese says, “We are passing with flying colors.”

 

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