As vaccination campaigns began to be rolled out in the UK and other countries, new strains of the virus emerged, threatening pandemic exit strategies around the world. The number of coronavirus cases in the UK has dramatically increased since December, with many attributed to the new variant first detected in London, while two other important variants have emerged in South Africa and Brazil. All these strains have already been identified in Japan, where the infection rate is also increasing. There are growing concerns about whether existing vaccines are effective against the new strains.

In this webinar, Dr Masahiro Ono from Imperial College London will explain the relationship between vaccines, new variants, and immunity.

Date: Friday 19 February 2021

UK Time: 12:00pm-1:15pm (GMT)
Japan Time: 9:00pm-10:15pm (GMT+9)

About the contributors

Dr Masahiro Ono is an immunologist with expertise in T-cells (a type of lymphocyte) at Imperial College London. His studies have focussed on how T-cells control immunity and establish immune memory, investigating autoimmune disease, infections, and cancer. He was originally trained as a dermatologist, later specialising in immunology. Having worked as an Assistant Professor at Kyoto University and Osaka University, he moved to University College London (UCL) in 2009 after being awarded a Human Frontier Science Program Fellowship. In 2013, he was awarded a BBSRC David Philips Fellowship and launched his own lab at UCL. He is currently Reader in Immunology at Imperial College London. He also holds a Visiting Associate Professorship at Kumamoto University. Recent articles by Dr Ono on T-cells in relation to COVID-19 have been published by Science Direct (link here) and Frontiers in immunology (link-https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.589380/full).