Presented by: Dr. Weiping Cao and Dr. Zachary Ende

When germs (e.g., bacteria or viruses) invade the body, they cause illness. Vaccines can prevent this from happening. Vaccines can be made from attenuated or inactivated germs or part of the germ structures, which help develop immunity by imitating an infection without causing disease. Once the imitation infection goes away, the body is left with specific memory cells which will remember how to fight the specific virus in the future. However, flu viruses can change over time and the human body sometimes fails to develop sufficient immunity. Under these circumstances, you can still fall sick despite being vaccinated against the virus. The development of improved vaccines including universal influenza vaccines that could provide protection against all subtypes of influenza viruses is a global effort.

About the Speakers:
Dr. Weiping Cao, MBBS, PhD, is a trained physician and immunologist. Dr. Cao’s research focuses on understanding the host immune response to influenza virus infection and vaccination with the goal of developing novel vaccine adjuvants and antimicrobial strategies to provide enhanced protection against virus infection. Dr. Cao has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers and was a speaker at several prestigious conferences.

Zachary Ende, PhD, is a viral immunologist who currently studies vaccine induced immune responses to the influenza virus, focusing on antibodies. He previously studied the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from 2008 to 2018 and is an author on >20 peer-reviewed scientific articles.

DETAILS:
– This virtual meetup is a production of Science for Georgia.
– You can join this event by clicking on the following link around the time the meetup is scheduled to begin: http://bit.ly/SCIvax1
– Be advised, Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge are the preferred browsers for this event. Other browsers, such as Safari, may not work at all.

On the day of the event, follow the Microsoft Teams meeting link. You can choose to join on the web (Use Chrome, Edge, or Firefox) or via the Teams app. You can enter your name to join as a guest if you don’t have a Teams account (someone will let you in from the lobby soon).

For more information about Teams see: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/join-a-teams-meeting-078e9868-f1aa-4414-8bb9-ee88e9236ee4