Drs. Anthony Fauci, Lee Hood Talk COVID-19, Vaccines, Future of Research, More

isbscience.org/news/2021/01/26/drs-anthony-fauci-lee-hood-talk-covid-19-vaccines-future-of-research-more/

ISB’s Dr. Lee Hood presented the PMWC Luminary Award to Dr. Anthony Fauci on Monday, and the two renowned scientists engaged in an interesting hour-long conversation. 

The Luminary Award was presented on behalf of Precision Medicine World Conference on the first day of PMWC COVID, a three-day virtual event. The award recognizes contributions of prominent figures who have accelerated personal medicine to the clinic.

Hood spoke with Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, about a number of topics, including the importance of basic research, the extraordinary speed of COVID research, the efficacy of mRNA vaccines on COVID-19 and the technology’s promise for creating effective vaccines for other diseases (including some cancers), lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. 

“We should have a vaccine, as well as universally applicable antivirals, that we could use for the next outbreak,” Fauci said. “I would be really disappointed if when this is over we don’t put together a commission and codify what we need to do as opposed to saying ‘well, we got through that, now let’s worry about the next problem’.”

You can watch the conversation here or by playing the video above.