When Haller arrived at the Kaiser building, she pulled into the garage and walked into the clinic, where she learned she would be the very first person in the world to receive the injection. Henry Hamilton Bennett (January 15, 1843 - January 1, 1908) was an American photographer famous for his pictures of the Dells of the Wisconsin River and surrounding region taken between 1865 and 1908. Ultimately, the committee agreed to go for it. "We realized that [SARS-CoV-2] was our prototype and that this was a live run that we were moving through." Safe and effective vaccines are now available, including Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine (mRNA-1273) that showed 94% efficacy in prevention of symptomatic COVID-19 disease in a phase 3 clinical study. It was January 13. He did not disappoint. Here, we show that mRNA-1273 induces both potent neutralizing antibody and CD8 T cell responses and protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection in lungs and noses of mice without evidence of immunopathology. Hamilton Bennett, Senior Director of Vaccine Access & Partnerships: "Your body gets sort of the software it needs to make its own protein. Up from 27 from just days before. Sera from participants immunized on a prime-boost schedule with the mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine were tested for neutralizing activity against several SARS-CoV-2 variants, including variants of concern (VOCs) and variants of interest (VOIs), compared to neutralization of the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 virus (designated as D614G). Moderna already had a template to work from, having spent several years designing experimental mRNA vaccines for the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and the Zika virus. The team was able to quickly identify the spike protein and understand how to engineer and stabilize it to induce a strong immune response, and when Bennett's team and the researchers at the NIH saw they had designed the same sequence independently, they felt confident in their findings. Opportunities for women, Black and other minority populations in the growing Bio-economy. During a meeting one morning, an engineer suggested that the virus doesnt take weekends, so we cant either. Weekends were officially canceled. And now, as Moderna awaits potential emergency use authorization by the FDA, Bennett said she is proud of what her team has accomplished. The clock was officially ticking. Cost and Value of Biopharmaceuticals. Find contacts: direct phone number, email address, work experience. Can you get it done?. We are comfortable with that.. Hamilton Bennett works in the Research industry. That evening, when Bancel returned to his hotel in the famous but aged ski resort, his mind was reeling from what he had heard and seen. I would come back by 7 a.m. Soon, other decisions were made in the name of speed. Strengthening the Bioeconomy. Contact an All American Speakers Bureau booking agent for more information on Hamilton Bennett speaking fees, availability, speech topics and cost to hire for your next live or virtual event. "The world was looking at us because we had started the first study in the U.S. We had done it faster than anyone before had ever done it. Others were not convinced that the pandemic would last more than a few months and felt it would be more prudent to wait before moving forward, until there was proof the virus was indeed a threat. News of the first U.S. death and the spread of the coronavirus in Seattle were also on Bancels mind, but for slightly different reasons. Moderna already had a template to work from, having spent several years designing experimental mRNA vaccines for the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and the Zika virus. You cannot fix an unsterile productyou just put it in the garbage and start again from scratch.. Being crowned Miss Asia Pageant 1997 effectively launched her career in the fashion and entertainment industry. mRNA-1273 encodes for a prefusion . In addition, because early cameras were unable to accurately capture details of the sky or reflections in water after being adjusted for the light of a typical land photograph, Bennett wove together negatives from multiple photographs of land, sky and water before creating a final print. This vaccine process needs to happen soon, she told herself. Stand up for innovation. Check that you typed the address correctly, go back to your previous page or try using our site search to find something specific. Bancel proudly refers to himself as a paranoid optimist. Hamilton Bennett and her team got it done in months. Kaiser needed to find dozens of healthy people who would volunteer as guinea pigs for Modernas Phase 1 safety trial. If so, Modernas race for the vaccine would play out under a million-watt global spotlight. SARS-CoV-2 is the third novel betacoronavirus in the last 20 years to cause substantial human disease; however, unlike . It can take from 10 to 15 years to develop a new vaccine. As new data shows kids in a mental health crisis, parents ask, where is the help for kids? When he reached the head of the queue and placed his order, the line cook asked a question as he heaped a scoop of chicken salad onto Andress sandwich. Haller wasnt fazed. Aside from shipping, the sterility test was Bancels biggest worry. Global Markets & Trade. The day CEPI announced it was funding Modernas Phase 1 trial, it also announced it would fund a University of Queensland lab and Pennsylvania-based Inovio Pharmaceuticals. That weekend the Chinese government posted the viruss sequence. While he couldnt yet identify it, Graham said, If its a coronavirus, we know what to do and have proven mRNA is effective.. Hamilton Bennett's colleagues are Aaron Frank, Abigail Longstaff, Adam Gilmore, Aida Skelic and more. Human Health. Six days after beginning their conversation, on January 31, Barouchs lab and Janssen had an agreement signed, sealed, and delivered. Bennett was born in Farnham, Quebec and raised in Brattleboro, Vermont. On February 7, the chief of technical operations and quality, industry veteran Juan Andres, went to the cafeteria at the Norwood plant for lunch. A Shared vision: Henry Hamilton Bennett and William H. Metcalf, A Compelling Vision: H. H. Bennett and the Wisconsin Dells, Items relating to the photographic publishing of H. H. Bennett, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=H._H._Bennett&oldid=1118079413, Pre-Confederation Canadian emigrants to the United States, People of Wisconsin in the American Civil War, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 25 October 2022, at 02:43. Scientist Xinhua Yan works in the lab at Moderna in Cambridge, MA, Feb. 28, 2020. Less than a year ago, little was known about the mysterious virus that was sickening dozens in China and spreading rapidly unbeknownst to people across the globe. Brooke Bollman, 1 Naveen Nunna, 1 Kapil Bahl, 1 Chiaowen Joyce Hsiao, 1 Hamilton Bennett, 1 Scott Butler, 2 Bryant Foreman, 3 Katherine E. Burgomaster, 3 Maya Aleshnick, 3 Wing-Pui Kong, 4 Brian E. Fisher, 4 Tracy J. Ruckwardt, 4 Kaitlyn M. Morabito, 4 Barney S. Graham, 4 Kimberly A. Dowd, 3 Theodore C . He knew that if Seattle became too much of a hot spot, it could upend the trial in many ways. "I think I emailed my team every six hours, Saturday, Sunday saying, 'Have you designed the vaccine sequence yet?'" In fact, that data was so encouraging that Bancel was set to announce in a few days time that the company would be doubling down on its vaccine-development program in 2020, with hopes of getting the worlds first mRNA vaccineand what would be Modernas first licensed productonto the market in the next few years. Hamilton Bennett Senior Director, Vaccine Access and Partnerships at Moderna Malden, Massachusetts, United States 1K followers 500+ connections Join to view profile Moderna Activity Have you. [2] Boston audiences of 1890 gasped when this photograph was projected as a magic lantern slide. On an industry conference call about emerging infectious diseases on January 29, Bennett listened in as representatives from major pharmaceutical companies hedged and dodged. The company would either celebrate one hell of public market debut, or fail while the whole world watched. This new type of a vaccine relied on a highly innovative and experimental technology, using messenger RNA (mRNA), described informally by Moderna as the "software of life.". But if the risk paid off, the reward would be substantial: It could shave weeks, even months, off the timeline. From his kitchen window, he had a full view of the sea. Agriculture & Environment. They agreed to convene the executive committee to discuss it straightaway. During the meeting, Bancel explained to Trump that he was waiting for FDA approval for the study and that Moderna would soon be testing the vaccine in humans. Hamilton Bennett, the senior director of vaccine access and partnerships at Moderna, did not anticipate that her team's years of work would soon be thrust into the global spotlight when Moderna became the first American company to jump into the race to a coronavirus vaccine. Up until then, all of the U.S. COVID-19 cases had been imported. Once inside the cell, that piece of DNA codes for a specific piece of the pathogen that sparks the desired immune response. On the flip side, what if it really was needed? biotechnology: biological products (no diagnostic substances), Sr. Project Manager, Clinical Development, Senior Director, Facilities & Engineering | Global Project Lead, Find verified emails and direct dial mobile numbers of contacts on LinkedIn, and sync them with your CRM instantly, Senior Director, Vaccine Access and Partnerships. Still, that was no guarantee hed get a response on a Saturday from a pharma exec. Note that clicking the link below will block access to this site for 24 hours. "We believe that our platform is going to make a difference, and we believe that we're uniquely capable of responding to this pandemic. Pharma companies had gotten left holding the bag during other novel viral epidemics, investing heavily to develop vaccines only to watch as the disease fizzled out on its own. Seven days a week, she stayed late at the office before driving home to Malden, where her husband had long ago gone to sleep. But it was his work during the 2016 Zika outbreak that rocketed him to broader fame after he produced an investigational vaccine in a then-unheard-of 180 days. Nothing, however, produced a more acute case of agita for Bancel than the topic of how to ship the vaccine to the NIH when it was finished. Hamilton Bennett and her team worked tirelessly to engineer a vaccine. He has spent most of his career seeking one for HIV and has worked on one for Ebola, too. The likely suspects had been ruled out. Andreswho was expecting something more along the lines of, Do you want lettuce and tomato on that?was taken aback. The culprit was a mystery. Bennett had just entered the estimated 120-day timetable into her project-management software and advised the NIH of the schedule when manufacturing came back and said they could do it even faster. It was no longer just an interesting experiment on a clinical scale. At one point, there were more than 100 companies pursuing a vaccine, most of which will never make it into clinical trials. As they ironed out the details of their partnership, public health officials delivered sobering news to the American public: Illinois had logged the United States first recorded case of community transmission. Agriculture & Environment. At the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, study recruiters leapt into action. Chemicals sit inside a refrigerator at the Moderna Therapeutics Inc. lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nov. 14, 2017. Competing Interest Statement Moderna and Dr. Barney Graham, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the NIH, had discussed executing a prototype project for a mRNA vaccine in 2020. Hamilton Bennett - BIO International Convention | BIO Speaker Hamilton Bennett ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, VACCINE ACCESS AND PARTNERSHIPS, MODERNA Speaking In 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Tuesday, June 6 Vaccine manufacturing in Africa: Challenges and opportunities The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for more geographic diversity in the production Hows the vaccine going? he said. Thats insane, Bennett replied, aware that the previous recordwhich she had setwas 10 months. From the start, Bancel felt the pressure of the spotlight. Addressing Climate Change. In the early days of the race, Inovio CEO Joseph Kim seemed to relish the competition. All Rights Reserved. Bennett said. On March 11, Italy closed for business. Unlike more traditional vaccines, which consist of weakened or inactivated forms of a virus, thus stimulating the body's immune response to create antibodies, a vaccine using mRNA sends a set of instructions into cells to teach them to make a protein, which will trigger an immune response inside our bodies to fight off the disease. He was heading toward the snow-cloaked Alps for the World Economic Forum at the Davos ski resort, where corporate leaders meet each year in a shared desire to save the world through capitalism. Bancel made sure the ringer on his phone was on before he left the office and made his way across the Longfellow Bridge to his home on Beacon Hill. Although the emergence of COVID-19 was first publicly reported in late December 2019, there was still very little known about the viral outbreak. Previously, it took several minutes for a camera to take a picture, and any movement of the subject being photographed over this time caused the picture to become blurry. Some said it would divert resources from thriving areas of research and reprioritize other lucrative programs, while betting on a yet unproven vaccine technology. It was 7 p.m. on a Friday, and the streets below in Kendall Square had already emptied out for the weekend when Graham asked Bennett if Moderna would be interested in using the new virus to test the companys accelerated vaccine-making capabilities. On April 6, Inovio, the Pennsylvania company, announced it was approved to start its Phase 1 trial. She had managed Modernas Zika program that produced a vaccine in a mere 10 months, a company record. During dinner, the dings of incoming text messages punctuated his conversation. Traditional vaccines are made from a weakened, dead, or small piece of a pathogena virus or bacteriawhich prompts the body to fight off the invader and builds up immunity for when the real deal comes along. As he made his way past security and into the West Wing, Bancel, who still thought of himself as a middle-class kid from the south of France despite having amassed a fortune after Modernas record-breaking 2018 IPO, felt humbled by the invitation. At 47 years old, his dark hair was thinning but his French accent was as thick as it had been nearly a decade earlier, when he mystified his colleagues by leaving a plum CEO job at a French multinational diagnostics company and moving to Boston to run Modernaat the time a positively tiny Kendall Square biotech that was still operating in stealth mode. She felt fortunate to have a job she could do from home, and because her hours were flexible, she knew she could make it to the dozen or so required appointments. After the outbreak of the American Civil War, Bennett joined the 12th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment and fought in the Battle of Vicksburg before being severely wounded by the accidental discharge of his own gun. Health officials warned that it was just the tip of the iceberg. Most important, using mRNA is a much faster way to make vaccines, which can normally take up to a decade to develop and test. Whats more, Barouch was confident his platform was the best one to deliver it. He originated methods for trimming, printing, washing, and mounting pictures, and devised improvements for his cameras. Less than a year ago, little was known about the mysterious virus that was sickening dozens in "The world was looking at us because we had started the first study in the U.S. We had done it faster than anyone before had ever done it. She signed a 45-page informed consent document listing the medical risks without thinking twice. The popularity of his photographs helped turn the city of Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin into a tourist destination.[2]. And now, as Moderna awaits potential emergency use authorization by the FDA, Bennett said she is proud of what her team has accomplished. Hamilton Bennett's research while affiliated with Moderna and other places Overview What is this page? Moderna. Days later, once she found out shed been selected, several friends tried to dissuade her. We encourage you to report any side effects directly to us at 1866MODERNA (18666633762). Bennett, a self-described "public-health nerd" with a master's degree in environmental microbiology, had sought a job at the company after hearing it was working on mRNA-based vaccines for new. Bennett was widely . If they werent, their time, effort, and resources would be wasted, and theyd have to backtrack and start over. Soon after, the U.S. government announced it was funding Moderna with nearly half a billion dollars. He had been through epidemics before, but he had never seen anything like this. Now, his company had embarked on a timed trial that was doubling as the governments vaccine response to a global pandemic, and Bancel was not going to let something as trivial as a shipping error derail them. The platforms potential seemed limitless. Despite the risks, Bennett said she felt very strongly that it was the company's moral and social obligation to develop the vaccine and, thus, advocated to push the company to take the gamble. The cat is out of the bag, he thought. In addition, what if a vaccine wasnt needed? On March 23, Governor Charlie Baker stood before a crush of reporters and made it official: All nonessential businesses were ordered to close their doors and all residents of Massachusetts were instructed to stay at home and isolate from one another. Moderna's phase 1 study had been initially expected to begin in late April, but acknowledging the urgency of the situation, Bennett's team pushed the timeline forward. Belinda Hamnett (Chinese: ; Cantonese: Hon Kwun-Ting) born 28 September 1975 in Hong Kong is an actress, model and ex-beauty queen. When data from the first phases of Moderna's clinical trial revealed the vaccine candidate had generated a protective immune response, it was a "sigh of relief" from the team -- but there was "no time to appreciate it," Bennett said. Opportunities for women, Black and other minority populations in the growing Bio-economy. On the 14th and final day of the sterility test, the quality control team told Bancel they would not have any news until later that evening. He didnt like the sound of it one bit, so he copied the story link and pasted it into an email directed at Barney Graham, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health. A few days later, Haller was at her desk for the tech firm where she works in Seattle, taking a break and catching up with her Facebook feed, when she saw a post that Kaiser was searching for volunteers. The best known photograph taken by Bennett with this device was an 1886 image of his son Ashley jumping between two rock formations in the Dells. By the weekend of January 25, just days after Moderna decided to go full steam ahead, he was convinced the world was going to need a vaccine for this virus. Yeah, Haller said. At Moderna, we believe messenger RNA, or mRNA, is the "software of life."Every cell in the body uses mRNA to provide real-time instructions to make the proteins necessary to drive all aspects of biology, including in human health and disease.Given its essential role, we believe mRNA could be used to create a new category of medicines with significant potential to improve the lives of patients .