Speaker: Dr. Andrew Ward, Ph.D, Professor, The Scripps Research Institute

Talk hosted by GenScript

About the Speaker

Andrew Ward, Ph.D., is a structural biologist at The Scripps Research Institute. Since 2010, his lab has advanced cryoEM to visualize viral and malarial antigens with antibodies, accelerating vaccine and antibody therapy development for HIV, flu, coronaviruses, Ebola, HCV, and malaria.

3 Key Bullet Points:

• Landmark Structures: Solved the first high-res HIV SOSIP trimer structure — jumpstarting global HIV vaccine trials by 2020 — and determined a key coronavirus spike structure in 2016, enabling the ‘2P’ mutations now used in Moderna, Pfizer, Novavax, and other leading COVID-19 vaccines.
• Revolutionary EM Method: Developed in 2018, this technique rapidly maps polyclonal antibody responses at atomic resolution and recovers antibody sequences directly from images — speeding up epitope-specific mAb discovery and vaccine design.
• Real-World Impact: His structural insights have directly shaped vaccine pipelines — from foundational HIV immunogens to rapid-response platforms for SARS-CoV-2 — turning basic science into life-saving therapies and preventatives worldwide