Mariagrazia Pizza, Senior Scientific Director for Bacterial Vaccines at GSK, will be at ITQB NOVA, on June 12, will discuss how important discoveries and the development of new and sophisticated technologies have advanced the design of vaccines against infections for which preventive measures did not exist, in her conference New Frontiers for Vaccinology, integrated in the Science and Challenges for the Future Conference Cycle.
Mariagrazia Pizza was responsible for developing the Meningococcus B vaccine, known as Bexsero, made available in 2013. Bexsero is the first ever vaccine against Meningitis B to be approved to market, closing a 40-year failure cycle. The feat was only possible due to the methodology known as reverse vaccinology, which uses the pathogen’s sequenced genome to find potential antigens. In 2015, the vaccine was introduced in the United Kingdom’s routine immunisation schedule, being administered to new-borns all over the country. In Portugal, parliament has recommended the inclusion of Bexsero in the National Vaccination Plan. Pizza was also involved in the development of the first acellular vaccine for pertussis, a disease that kills thousands of children worldwide every year.