NIH: How does it feel to know millions of people around the world are getting a vaccine that resulted from your work?

Mascola: Realizing that our work is having a worldwide impact, saving many thousands of lives, is pretty amazing. It’s been exciting and rewarding to see how decades of hard work by NIH scientists and the foresight of public health leaders have come together to develop vaccines to control the pandemic.

NIH: What is the VRC? How did it come about?

Mascola: The idea behind the VRC came from discussions at NIH back in 1996 about unifying all of NIH’s work on vaccines for HIV/AIDS. Construction of the center was complete in 2000.

The VRC is home to scientists with expertise in all aspects of vaccine development, starting with basic science and structural biology, through clinical trials, and even vaccine production. We work with scientists in universities, other agencies, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The VRC’s organizational structure has been very productive.

NIH: Tell us a bit about your personal and professional journey to becoming the head of the VRC.

Mascola: I started out as an infectious disease doctor. I began to focus on how the human immune system works — and how it doesn’t work in certain health conditions, especially HIV/AIDS. My research on immunity and HIV grew into an interest in vaccines. Working on vaccines to prevent HIV/AIDS at the VRC was a natural fit for me.

NIH: What else is going on at the VRC?

Mascola: Even as we work on COVID-19 vaccines, we have kept our other programs active.

The VRC is working on vaccines for other viral diseases, including Ebola virus and Zika virus diseases, as well as diseases caused by bacteria, such as tuberculosis. We also work on parasitic diseases like malaria.

For influenza (flu), VRC scientists are testing universal vaccines. A universal vaccine would work against more strains of flu and give longer-lasting immunity than the current vaccines. Imagine if you only needed one flu shot and maybe a couple of booster doses throughout your lifetime instead of having to get a shot every year.

NIH: What keeps you up at night?

Mascola: Whatever the latest COVID-19 emergency is.

Right now, I worry about new variants (strains) of SARS-CoV-2. The more the virus multiplies, the more chances it has to mutate and become a variant of concern. Variants of concern may spread more quickly, cause more severe disease, or be resistant to vaccines and treatments.

So far, our vaccines seem to provide protection against variants, but we need to take steps, like increasing vaccination rates, to stop the virus from multiplying.

NIH: How can we better prepare for public health emergencies like the COVID-19 pandemic?

Mascola: We recognize on all levels — political, scientific, and individual — that pandemics can happen anytime, anywhere. COVID-19 is the third coronavirus outbreak in less than 20 years. You don’t need a crystal ball to know that more outbreaks are likely.

We need a better understanding of major virus “families” that affect humans, plus a stronger global surveillance system to watch for new microbes with the potential to cause human disease.

Finally, we have to set up rapid-response plans so we can quickly design and produce vaccines when new diseases pop up. We need to have enough manufacturing facilities to produce large numbers of doses.

We were able to rapidly create a vaccine in response to the COVID-19 pandemic because of the years spent in building a knowledge base about coronaviruses and mRNA vaccines. This was only possible through research investments in virology, immunology, and vaccines by NIH and other parts of the public sector, together with vaccine research and development in the private sector.

Sources

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2. Corey, L., Mascola, J. R., Fauci, A. S., & Collins, F. S. (2020). A strategic approach to COVID-19 vaccine R&D. Science (New York, N.Y.), 368(6494), 948–950. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc5312.
3. Global Change Data Lab. (2021). Our World in Data. COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Administered, by Manufacturer, in the United States. Retrieved May 17, 2021, from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccine-doses-by-manufacturer.
4. Mascola, J. R., & Fauci, A. S. (2020). Novel vaccine technologies for the 21st century. Nature Reviews. Immunology, 20(2), 87–88. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-019-0243-3.
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