<p>Guys, how do you invent a vaccine? Or wilder, how do you invent a vaccine during your PhD?!<br>

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In a new episode of Hard Drugs, we talked to someone who did just that: <a href="https://nitter.net/Kat_a_Collins" title="Katharine Collins">@Kat_a_Collins</a>! <br>

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A single malaria parasite that reaches your liver is enough to cause an infection. Worse, malaria has a complicated lifecycle with multiple stages, during which it changes shape and switches its surface proteins. And it’s co-evolved with humans for thousands of years, learning to evade and misdirect our immune system. <br>

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That’s why it’s been so much harder to develop vaccines against than viruses or bacteria. But not impossible!<br>

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In this episode, <a href="https://nitter.net/JacobTref" title="Jacob Trefethen">@JacobTref</a> and I are joined by Katharine Collins, who co-invented the second malaria vaccine, R21, during her PhD at the Jenner Institute in Oxford!<br>

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After reading the expired patent of the first malaria vaccine (RTS,S), she stripped out the excess Hepatitis B surface antigen that RTS,S, leaving a particle with a much higher proportion of malaria antigen, used many newer processes, and paired it with a cheaper, more scalable adjuvant.<br>

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The result is a vaccine that’s around a third of the price, easier to manufacture at scale, and may be more durable as well. <br>

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It also means a vaccine that can reach far more children and save far more lives. Efficiency and scale matter enormously in the real world.<br>

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It’s probably our coolest episode ever. You will learn lots of secret, behind the scenes information about how innovation really works.<br>

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We chat about all this and much more!<br>

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Timestamps:<br>

00:00 Introduction<br>

05:08 Our favourite parasites<br>

10:12 How to invent a vaccine during your PhD<br>

34:18 Why is it called the R21 vaccine?<br>

37:32 Moving from the bench to hundreds of millions of doses<br>

41:43 The vicious life cycle of malaria parasites<br>

46:15 Malaria research IN MICE<br>

53:03 The murderer in malaria research<br>

55:51 Would you volunteer to get infected by malaria?<br>

1:08:21 Why did the first malaria vaccine take so long?<br>

1:18:26 Could we have had the vaccine sooner?<br>

1:40:48 Vaccine versus vaccine: which one’s better?<br>

1:46:53 If we did this again today, could we make better vaccines?<br>

2:04:55 Conclusion and our reasons for pessimism and optimism</p>

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<br>Video<br>

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