Hearty congratulations to Prof Raghavan Varadarajan on winning the 2024 Tata Transformation Prize!
Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) causes severe respiratory illness in over 30 million people annually, disproportionately affecting infants, young children, and the elderly, with more than 97% of RSV-related deaths occurring in developing countries, including India. Despite the availability of new RSV vaccines, their high cost makes them inaccessible to the populations most at risk.
Raghavan Varadarajan aims to develop a cost-effective RSV vaccine that addresses these challenges. Drawing upon his lab’s extensive expertise in protein structure and vaccine design, Varadarajan is developing a vaccine that will surmount the challenges that have hindered RSV vaccine development for decades and will provide broad and longer-lasting protection against RSV infection. Furthermore, by employing cutting-edge methods in protein production, Varadarajan’s team is optimizing the vaccine manufacturing process to significantly reduce costs, potentially lowering the price of each dose by up to 95%.
More details: https://www.nyas.org/shaping-science/awards/tata-transformation-prize/
Press release: https://www.nyas.org/press-release/winners-of-the-2024-tata-transformation-prize-celebrate-bold-innovation-for-india-and-beyond/
