4. Vaccines & Therapeutics

The Vaccines and Therapeutics Co-operative led by Associate Professor Sylvie Alonso aims to develop pathogen-agnostic technologies and platforms to enable rapid therapeutic or vaccine development to enhance Singapore’s capabilities and access to vaccines during future epidemics.

Lead

Associate Professor Sylvie Alonso

Associate Professor Sylvie Alonso leads the PREPARE Vaccines & Therapeutics Co-operative. She is also Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Co-Director of Infectious Diseases Translational Research Programme at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, and Deputy Director of Life Sciences Institute at NUS.

Deputy Lead

Dr Conrad Chan is the Deputy Lead of the Vaccines & Therapeutics Co-operative. He is also the Lead of the Laboratory Research Core, and a Senior Principal Scientific Officer (PREPARE Laboratory) in CDA with a background in virology and immunology. He did his PhD in Immunology at National University of Singapore on the development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against viral pathogens. His research interests are in high containment laboratories, humoral immunity and serology, vaccine and therapeutic testing/evaluation and viral characterization and biobanking.

Our goals

The Vaccines and Therapeutics Co-operative programme aims to:

1. Help develop research expertise and capabilities in virology and vaccinology;

2. Establish a pre-clinical ecosystem for easy access and rapid deployment of relevant technologies and expertise; and

3. Deliver pre-clinically validated therapeutics/ vaccine technologies/platforms that are ready to enter clinical development

Our strategy

The Vaccines and Therapeutics Co-operative will support use-inspired research on priority pathogen families, as well as pathogen agnostic vaccine and therapeutic platforms through its strategic open grant calls, commissioned studies and partnerships with local biotech sector and multinational pharma companies.