Join us for an important panel on vaccines and vaccine research in India, featuring experts from Columbia University and leading Indian institutions.
In the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, our lives seem to be dominated by two major topics — ‘vaccines’ and ‘variants.’ While the WHO has recently moved away from geographical nomenclature to describe variants, the virus continues to mutate in its genome and raise considerable public health concerns, especially in countries such as India which are struggling to meet vaccine demands. Given the urgent need, vaccine developers have condensed the clinical process, running trial phases simultaneously. But ensuring demographic diversity in trials is important as it helps ensure safety and effectiveness across populations and may increase confidence in people of different ethnicities.
Our panel of experts will discuss how India is represented in current clinical trials, what the ongoing trials within the country are, and which scientific establishments are spearheading these trials. With biological leaks being linked to the origin of the coronavirus, they will address how regional research labs are maintaining international safety standards. Furthermore, they will deliberate on how global equity, accessibility, and scientific cooperation can be sustained for combatting the current pandemic and its mutations as well as future outbreaks.
PANELISTS:
Vincent Racaniello
Higgins Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, Columbia University Medical Center
Nischay Mishra
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, Center for Infection and Immunity, Columbia University Medical Center
Gagandeep Kang
Professor of Microbiology, Division of Gastrointestinal Sciences, Christian Medical College
CHAIRPERSON:
Ravina Aggarwal
Director, Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai