McLellan to Deliver Dyer Lecture

Dr. Jason McLellan

Dr. Jason McLellan will deliver the annual Rolla E. Dyer Lecture on Dec. 11 at 2 p.m., ET. Dating back to 1950 and part of the Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series (WALS), the Dyer lecture is the oldest at NIH and features internationally renowned researchers who have made significant contributions to the knowledge of infectious diseases. This year’s lecture will take place in Lipsett Amphitheater.

Form follows function, as the architectural principle goes, and the same could be said for smart vaccine design. McLellan and his team developed technology to engineer key proteins used in some of today’s vaccines against Covid-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). The structure of those proteins is adapted from the very antigens expressed by invading viruses to enter cells and escape immune detection. In his talk, he’ll discuss this concept of structure-based vaccine design and how adopting the architecture of viral fusion proteins can be used to trigger a protective antibody response against a variety of deadly pathogens.

McLellan will speak about the overarching principles behind structure-based vaccine design and his lab’s pivotal role in developing vaccine antigens used in licensed RSV and Covid-19 vaccines. He will also touch upon new and ongoing research applying this technology to other viruses. 

McLellan is a tenured faculty member and associate chair for graduate education in the Department of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. He’s no stranger to NIH, having conducted his postdoctoral research at the Vaccine Research Center after earning his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

For those unable to attend in person, the event will be hosted on NIH videocast at https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=55012. —Michael Tabasko