The Canada-United Kingdom Chamber of Commerce, in collaboration with The Canada-UK Foundation, hosted Nathalie Landry, Executive Vice President of Medicago, based in Quebec City, and Prof. Jonathan Heeney from Cambridge University, to discuss advances in the research for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines.
Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Quebec City, announced in early March that they had successfully produced a Virus-Like Particle (VLP) of the coronavirus just 20 days after obtaining the SARS-CoV-2 (virus causing the COVID-19 disease) gene. The Government of Canada and the Province of Quebec this week announced significant financial investments which will allow Medicago to rapidly move from preclinical testing to clinical trials, as well as scaling up production for pandemic response. Join us to hear from Dr. Heeney about his global work at Cambridge, vaccine potential, and mechanisms of action and from Mme. Landry about ground breaking Canadian developments at Medicago, including plans for clinical trials as early as July/August 2020.
Nathalie Landry
Executive Vice President, Scientific and Medical Affairs
Medicago
Nathalie Landry is a dynamic biotech leader with more than 25 years of experience leading teams and programs to successful milestones. At Medicago, she oversees a multidisciplinary team in charge of R&D, preclinical and clinical development, clinical immunology, as well as scientific and medical affairs. Nathalie represents Medicago at numerous international conferences and meetings and is the co-author of several scientific publications and patents. She joined Medicago in 2000 as Director of Strategic Development and later became Senior Director of Product Development. In 2007, she was named Vice President.
Prior to joining Medicago she worked for a start-up biotech company developing and producing anticancer compounds, where she held various positions. Nathalie earned a Master's degree in microbiology-immunology in 1989 and an MBA in 1997, both from Laval University.
Jonathan Heeney
Professor of Comparative Pathology
University of Cambridge
Canadian researcher Jonathan Heeney is Head of The Laboratory of Viral Zoonotics at Cambridge University. His research focuses on cross-species transmissions of viruses, and the co-evolution of viruses and their hosts including the evolution of immune mechanisms of disease protection in naturally infected but disease-resistant species. Not only has this interest led to the discovery of a number of new viruses, but also a genetic comparison of host and viral sequences from the same individual and sample have provided powerful genetic tools to solve some of nature's intriguing mysteries. Currently, this laboratory applies these molecular technologies to address important questions concerning zoonotic infections of importance to both veterinary and human health.
Studies currently focus on understanding successful host immune responses to RNA viruses. Translationally this information is utilized for the rational design of novel vaccines for the prevention of diseases caused by notoriously complex viral pathogens.
Since 2016, Heeney has been honing a set of methods – a platform, in vaccine parlance – that can be used to fashion vaccines that destroy whole families of viruses. Last year, he won a Gates Foundation grant to fund research into a universal flu vaccine – one that will prevail against every kind of flu virus. In January, he kept an eye on a new disease that was flying across eastern China. After two weeks, when Chinese scientists published the coronavirus’s genetic sequence, Heeney’s team decided to use this
