Viruses, vaccines, immunity and pandemics

Viruses, Immunity, and Vaccines

 

Arup K. Chakraborty

Departments of Chemical Engineering, Physics, and Chemistry

Institute for Medical Engineering & Science

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 

Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT & Harvard

 

Infectious disease-causing pathogens have plagued humanity since antiquity, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been a vivid reminder of this perpetual existential threat. Vaccination has saved more lives than any other medical procedure, and indeed, effective vaccines now promise to control the COVID-19 pandemic. However, we do not have effective vaccines against rapidly mutating viruses, such as HIV; nor do we have a universal vaccine against seasonal variants of influenza or SARS-CoV-2 variants that may evolve in the future. The ability to develop effective vaccines that protect us from highly mutable viruses will help create a more pandemic-resilient world. In this talk, I will describe how by bringing together approaches from statistical physics, learning theory, virology and immunology, progress is being made to address this challenge. The application of these fundamental concepts to HIV and influenza vaccines will be discussed.