Rino Rappuoli | |
|---|---|
 Rappuoli in 2016 | |
| Born | 4 August 1952 [1] Radicofani, Italy |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | |
| Website | www |
Rino Rappuoli ForMemRS (born 4 August 1952) is an Italian immunologist. He is the head of vaccine research and development (R&D) at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Vaccines. [2] Previously, he has served as visiting scientist at Rockefeller University and Harvard Medical School and held roles at Sclavo, Vaccine Research and CSO, Chiron Corporation, and Novartis Vaccines. [3] [4] [5]
Rappuoli earned his doctoral and bachelor's degrees in biological sciences at the University of Siena. [6]
He is known globally for his work in vaccines and immunology. He co-founded the field of cellular microbiology, a discipline combining cell biology and microbiology, and pioneered the genomic approach to vaccine development known as reverse vaccinology, a subsection of reverse pharmacology. [6]
Rappuoli led Chiron Corporation's development of adjuvanted influenza vaccines, MENJUGATE(R) conjugate vaccine against meningococcal-C disease and the first recombinant bacterial vaccine against pertussis. Currently,[ when? ] Rappuoli is actively involved in the research and development of further vaccines against meningococcal disease and avian and pandemic influenza.
Rappuoli joined Chiron as head of European vaccines research in 1992 with the acquisition of Italian vaccines company Sclavo SpA, where he served as head of research and development. Rappuoli, was previously the global head of vaccines research for Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics (Siena, Italy) [6] Since 2015, Dr. Rappuoli serves as the chief scientist and head of external R&D at the vaccines division of GlaxoSmithKline and is based in Siena, Italy. [7]
Major achievements include development of CRM197 [8] used in Haemophilus influenzae , Neisseria meningitidis , [9] and pneumococcus vaccines; an acellular pertussis vaccine containing a genetically detoxified pertussis toxin; the first conjugate vaccines against meningococcus; MF59 adjuvant for influenza; [10] [11] the meningococcus B genome-derived vaccine. [3] [12]
During his career, he has introduced several novel scientific concepts: genetic detoxification in 1987; [13] cellular microbiology in 1996; [14] reverse vaccinology in 2000; [15] pan-genome in 2005. [3] [16]
Rappuoli is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 1991. He is a member of numerous international associations, including the European Molecular Biology Organization and the American Society for Microbiology. He also serves as a member of the research directors group of the European Commission and was elected to National Academy of Sciences of the United States.[ when? ] He was also awarded the Italian President Gold Medal in 2005 and the Albert Sabin Gold Medal in 2009. [3] In 2013 he was nominated third most influential person worldwide in the field of vaccines by Terrapin. In 2015 he was awarded Fellowship of Imperial College London Faculty of Medicine and the Maurice Hilleman Award. [3]
In 2016 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. [3]
In 2017 he received the European Inventor Award 2017 in the category of "Lifetime achievement" by the European Patent Office. [17] In 2019 he was awarded the Robert Koch Prize. [18]
A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified. A vaccine typically contains an agent that resembles a disease-causing microorganism and is often made from weakened or killed forms of the microbe, its toxins, or one of its surface proteins. The agent stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as a threat, destroy it, and to further recognize and destroy any of the microorganisms associated with that agent that it may encounter in the future.
Neisseria is a large genus of bacteria that colonize the mucosal surfaces of many animals. Of the 11 species that colonize humans, only two are pathogens, N. meningitidis and N. gonorrhoeae.
Antigenic drift is a kind of genetic variation in viruses, arising from the accumulation of mutations in the virus genes that code for virus-surface proteins that host antibodies recognize. This results in a new strain of virus particles that is not effectively inhibited by the antibodies that prevented infection by previous strains. This makes it easier for the changed virus to spread throughout a partially immune population. Antigenic drift occurs in both influenza A and influenza B viruses.
Comparative genomics is a field of biological research in which the genomic features of different organisms are compared. The genomic features may include the DNA sequence, genes, gene order, regulatory sequences, and other genomic structural landmarks. In this branch of genomics, whole or large parts of genomes resulting from genome projects are compared to study basic biological similarities and differences as well as evolutionary relationships between organisms. The major principle of comparative genomics is that common features of two organisms will often be encoded within the DNA that is evolutionarily conserved between them. Therefore, comparative genomic approaches start with making some form of alignment of genome sequences and looking for orthologous sequences in the aligned genomes and checking to what extent those sequences are conserved. Based on these, genome and molecular evolution are inferred and this may in turn be put in the context of, for example, phenotypic evolution or population genetics.
Squalene is an organic compound. It is a triterpenoid with the formula C30H50. It is a colourless oil, although impure samples appear yellow. It was originally obtained from shark liver oil (hence its name, as Squalus is a genus of sharks). An estimated 12% of bodily squalene in humans is found in sebum. Squalene has a role in topical skin lubrication and protection.
Chiron Corporation was an American multinational biotechnology firm founded in 1981, based in Emeryville, California, that was acquired by Novartis on April 20, 2006. It had offices and facilities in eighteen countries on five continents. Chiron's business and research was in three main areas: biopharmaceuticals, vaccines, and blood testing. Chiron's vaccines and blood testing units were combined to form Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, while Chiron BioPharmaceuticals was integrated into Novartis Pharmaceuticals. In 2014, Novartis completed the sale of its blood transfusion diagnostics unit to Grifols and announced agreements for the sale of its vaccines unit to GlaxoSmithKline.
Neisseria meningitidis, often referred to as the meningococcus, is a Gram-negative bacterium that can cause meningitis and other forms of meningococcal disease such as meningococcemia, a life-threatening sepsis. The bacterium is referred to as a coccus because it is round, and more specifically a diplococcus because of its tendency to form pairs.
Pertussis toxin (PT) is a protein-based AB5-type exotoxin produced by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis, which causes whooping cough. PT is involved in the colonization of the respiratory tract and the establishment of infection. Research suggests PT may have a therapeutic role in treating a number of common human ailments, including hypertension, viral infection, and autoimmunity.
In immunology, an adjuvant is a substance that increases or modulates the immune response to a vaccine. The word "adjuvant" comes from the Latin word adiuvare, meaning to help or aid. "An immunologic adjuvant is defined as any substance that acts to accelerate, prolong, or enhance antigen-specific immune responses when used in combination with specific vaccine antigens."
Gerald Mayer Rubin is an American biologist, notable for pioneering the use of transposable P elements in genetics, and for leading the public project to sequence the Drosophila melanogaster genome. Related to his genomics work, Rubin's lab is notable for development of genetic and genomics tools and studies of signal transduction and gene regulation. Rubin also serves as a vice president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and executive director of the Janelia Research Campus.
Reverse vaccinology is an improvement of vaccinology that employs bioinformatics and reverse pharmacology practices, pioneered by Rino Rappuoli and first used against Serogroup B meningococcus. Since then, it has been used on several other bacterial vaccines.
Pathogenomics is a field which uses high-throughput screening technology and bioinformatics to study encoded microbe resistance, as well as virulence factors (VFs), which enable a microorganism to infect a host and possibly cause disease. This includes studying genomes of pathogens which cannot be cultured outside of a host. In the past, researchers and medical professionals found it difficult to study and understand pathogenic traits of infectious organisms. With newer technology, pathogen genomes can be identified and sequenced in a much shorter time and at a lower cost, thus improving the ability to diagnose, treat, and even predict and prevent pathogenic infections and disease. It has also allowed researchers to better understand genome evolution events - gene loss, gain, duplication, rearrangement - and how those events impact pathogen resistance and ability to cause disease. This influx of information has created a need for bioinformatics tools and databases to analyze and make the vast amounts of data accessible to researchers, and it has raised ethical questions about the wisdom of reconstructing previously extinct and deadly pathogens in order to better understand virulence.
A subunit vaccine is a vaccine that contains purified parts of the pathogen that are antigenic, or necessary to elicit a protective immune response. Subunit vaccine can be made from dissembled viral particles in cell culture or recombinant DNA expression, in which case it is a recombinant subunit vaccine.
An inactivated vaccine is a vaccine consisting of virus particles, bacteria, or other pathogens that have been grown in culture and then killed to destroy disease-producing capacity. In contrast, live vaccines use pathogens that are still alive. Pathogens for inactivated vaccines are grown under controlled conditions and are killed as a means to reduce infectivity and thus prevent infection from the vaccine.
MF59 is an immunologic adjuvant that uses squalene. It is Novartis' proprietary adjuvant that is added to influenza vaccines to help stimulate the human body's immune response through production of CD4 memory cells.
Peter Palese is a United States microbiologist, researcher, inventor and the Horace W. Goldsmith Professor in the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and an expert in the field of RNA viruses.
Immunomics is the study of immune system regulation and response to pathogens using genome-wide approaches. With the rise of genomic and proteomic technologies, scientists have been able to visualize biological networks and infer interrelationships between genes and/or proteins; recently, these technologies have been used to help better understand how the immune system functions and how it is regulated. Two thirds of the genome is active in one or more immune cell types and less than 1% of genes are uniquely expressed in a given type of cell. Therefore, it is critical that the expression patterns of these immune cell types be deciphered in the context of a network, and not as an individual, so that their roles be correctly characterized and related to one another. Defects of the immune system such as autoimmune diseases, immunodeficiency, and malignancies can benefit from genomic insights on pathological processes. For example, analyzing the systematic variation of gene expression can relate these patterns with specific diseases and gene networks important for immune functions.
Vaccine resistance is the evolutionary adaptation of pathogens to infect and spread through vaccinated individuals, analogous to antimicrobial resistance. It concerns both human and animal vaccines. Although the emergence of a number of vaccine resistant pathogens has been well documented, this phenomenon is nevertheless much more rare and less of a concern than antimicrobial resistance.
Whole-cell vaccines are a type of vaccine that has been prepared in the laboratory in such a way to express immune cells such as cytokines, chemokines and other costimulatory molecules. When administered to the patients, these molecules will stimulate the immune system of the patient. The whole-cell vaccine simultaneously targets multiple antigens to activate the immune system and induces antigen-specific T-cell responses.
Mariagrazia Pizza is an Italian vaccine researcher who is a professor at Imperial College London. She worked as Senior Scientific Director for Bacterial Vaccines at GSK plc. She was involved with the development of the first pertussis vaccine. In 2023, she was awarded the IVI-SK bioscience Park MahnHoon Award.
All text published under the heading 'Biography' on Fellow profile pages is available under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License." -- "Royal Society Terms, conditions and policies". Archived from the original on September 25, 2015. Retrieved 2016-03-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |