Times are local to Japan.

Note: A Zoom access link will be sent to all participants 2 hours before the webinar is scheduled to start.

It’s been over a year since the global outbreak of the coronavirus disease – a virus that’s now spread to nearly every country, affected over 120 million people worldwide, and reached a devastating number of almost 2.7 million recorded deaths.

However, with the new year came some good news when the World Health Organisation approved its first emergency use validation for a COVID-19 vaccine in December. Scientists have been on a mission to produce safe and effective vaccines in record time, and we now have several that been authorised for use and are being rolled out in mass immunisation programmes around the globe; many more remain in development.

One of these vaccines is the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine known as ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, first authorised for use in Britain in December, closely followed by the EU, and now in over 50 countries worldwide.

With the vaccine rollout well underway in many parts of the world, there is increasingly more hope for a time when the pandemic is under control and we can imagine a return to normality in the business world and in everyday life.

On 7th April from 17:00-18:00 (JST), we invite Professor Andrew Pollard, Director of the Oxford Vaccine Group and chief investigator of the vaccine’s global clinical trials, to tell the story of how the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was developed, how the scientists were able to develop a vaccine within 10 months in a process that usually takes 10 years, and the legacy that this and COVID-19 is likely to leave in the years to come.

Speaker

Andrew J Pollard, BSc MA MBBS MRCP(UK) FRCPCH PhD DIC FHEA FIDSA FMedSci | Professor of Paediatric Infection and Immunity at the University of Oxford, Honorary Consultant Paediatrician at Oxford Children’s Hospital

Andrew is the Chief Investigator leading the development of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19).

After obtaining his medical degree at St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical School, University of London in 1989, Andrew trained in Paediatrics at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, UK, specialising in Paediatric Infectious Diseases at St Mary’s Hospital, London, UK and at British Columbia Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, Canada. He obtained his PhD at St Mary’s Hospital, London, UK in 1999 studying immunity to Neisseria meningitides in children and proceeded to work on anti-bacterial innate immune responses in children in Canada before returning to his current position at the University of Oxford, UK in 2001.

Andrew also chairs the UK Department of Health and Social Care’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, is a member of WHO’s SAGE, and chaired the European Medicines Agency scientific advisory group on vaccines (2012-2020). He received the Bill Marshall award of the European Society for Paediatric Infectious Disease (ESPID) in 2013, the ESPID Distinguished Award for Education & Communication in 2015 and the Rosén von Rosenstein medal in 2019 awarded by the Swedish Paediatric Society and the Swedish Society of Medicine. He was elected to the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2016 and is an NIHR Senior Investigator.

Moderator

Alison Beale | Director, University of Oxford Japan Office / BCCJ Vice President

Alison has been Director of the University of Oxford Japan Office since 2012 after 15 years of living and working in Japan and a career in international and cultural relations. She worked for many years for the British Council in senior positions in China, Trinidad and Tobago and Japan, most recently as Deputy Director Japan from 2009–2012. She is frequently asked to talk about Higher Education and to advise universities in Japan on their internationalisation strategies.