Join our virtual event featuring an international panel of renowned research scientists to learn all about vaccines for COVID-19 and other deadly infections. Our panel will discuss how effective COVID-19 vaccines have been developed so quickly, and highlight the remarkable achievements of other vaccination programmes from the past century.

Chaired by award- winning BBC Broadcaster Claudia Hammond

Our panel:

Scientist, researcher, author and science explainer Dr Peter Hotez

Associate Professor and Jenner Investigator, University of Oxford Prof Teresa Lambe

Crick Group Leader and Viral immunity researcher Dr Andreas Wack

Andreas Wack will give a short talk on “What vaccines are and a history of their success”. This will be followed by the expert panel discussion chaired by Claudia Hammond with opportunities for answering questions from the audience.

Vaccines are one of the greatest medical achievements of all time. In the early 20th century, many thousands of people died each year from diseases such as measles, diphtheria and whooping cough, which are now prevented by childhood vaccination. Smallpox used to kill millions but has been completely eradicated by vaccination. In some ways, vaccines have become a victim of their own success — most people now lack first-hand experience of how severe these diseases can be.

The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced what a powerful tool for public health vaccines really are. Remarkably, in less than a year since the pandemic was declared, scientists have been able to develop a number of highly effective vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These vaccines train your immune system to protect you against the virus and are already reducing hospitalisations and death rates from COVID-19. Thanks to these vaccines we can now start to think about a return to our ‘normal’ lives again.

For this virtual event, we are delighted to welcome several internationally renowned scientists who have helped to develop vaccines for COVID-19 and other deadly diseases. Our panellists will explain how different types of vaccines educate your immune system so that it is able to protect you against infections. Find out what herd immunity really means and how antibodies and T cells from your immune system can destroy bacteria and viruses. And did you know that vaccines are not only for fighting infectious diseases? In the future, it is likely that we will have vaccines that protect us from cancer too.