The Meharry and Vanderbilt-based expert shares insights into reaching less trustful populations on the first podcast episode.
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Episode highlights
0:18 – How we got here
3:10 – Contagion® COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker Update
5:37 – Introducing Donald Alcendor, PhD
6:11 – Vaccine hesitancy, community to community
13:40 – Oversight of science by non-scientists
17:05 – Will phase 3 data influence people?
23:14 – How has vaccine hesitancy been beaten before?
27:40 – Better representation in vaccine research?
32:20 – Concerns of vaccine inequity
37:26 – Outro
Few medical advances have progressed with such expediency, scrutiny, and financial backing as the development of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) vaccines.
In just 10 months, drug developers, legislators, and researchers have collaborated on the condensed creation, assessment, and planned distribution of nearly a dozen likely candidates designed to curb coronavirus’ spread. If majority population immunity is the safest, most efficient mean to end the effect of a pandemic that’s already cost 210,000-plus lives, then whatever vaccines reach market could be world-changing.
Beyond coverage of the spread, prevention, and treatment of coronavirus, Contagion® recognizes the need to give unique focus to this unparalleled clinical effort. Readers can follow along vaccine research and insights on the COVID-19 Vaccine page, and can catch up on the individual candidates’ progression on the Live Vaccine Tracker.
And now, they can tune in to the Vaccine Race podcast, a limited series designed to provide everything new to know and learn about the COVID-19 vaccine candidates.
The inaugural episode’s featured guest is Donald J. Alcendor, PhD, Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology at Meharry Medical College and Adjunct Associate Professor of Cancer Biology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
After updates on vaccine developments, new data, FDA guidance, and distribution deals, Alcendor joins to discuss the need for vaccine buy-in from hard-to-reach populations and communities historically at odds with healthcare.
A new study in infants challenges the long-standing belief about the pathogen’s effects in the youngest pediatric population. Senior author Joseph Zackular, PhD, provides insights around his work including how it reshapes gut development and offers potential intervention strategies to shield neonates.
The 18-year old resident of the state suffered from acute disseminated encephalomyelitis. Pennsylvania numbers are surging with some of the highest state totals of measles cases in the country.
FDA approved updated 2026-2027 COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax's partners, all reformulated to target the XFG variant, giving clinicians several options ahead of the fall respiratory virus season.
Editor in chief Jason Gallagher, PharmD, FCCP, FIDP, FIDSA, BCPS, discusses the proposed OMB rule restricting federal grants for international research collaboration, and how it threatens infectious disease medicine's inherently borderless surveillance networks, publication access, and knowledge-sharing systems.
The Vaccine Integrity Project, in collaboration with the American Medical Association, conducted a vaccine and immunization effectiveness and safety review for RSV, Influenza, and COVID-19 for the 2026-2027 season. JAMA published the review, and here is an overview of the data going into this year's seasonal respiratory virus season.
GSK will advance its investigational mRNA seasonal flu vaccine candidate, which targets both hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, into a phase 3 trial in September 2026 after the shot outperformed licensed flu vaccines in a phase 2 study.