Webinar on covid19 vaccine at PU

Chandigarh: Dr. Nikolai Petrovsky, a practising physician and Professor in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University, South Australia delivered a lecture in a webinar on “Progress in the Race to Develop a COVID19 Vaccine” at Panjab University today.
 
Prof. Petrovsky is also the Chairman and Research Director of a proprietary company, Vaxine which is an Adelaide-based biotechnology company. His research interests including vaccines, adjuvants and the application of artificial intelligence and computer modelling to immune system research. He has received multiple grants from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and has won prestigious awards including 2010 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and 2013 Asian Executive of the Year Award. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific paper and is a regular invited keynote speaker at international vaccine conferences.
 
Professor Petrovsky is a SPARC visiting professor of Panjab University and last year visited Chemistry Department of Panjab University to establish a collaboration with Dr. Deepak Salunke’s laboratory who is involved in the research related to the development of Vaccine Adjuvants. The program is funded by MHRD of Govt. of India.
 
On July 03, 2020, a potential COVID-19 vaccine, called COVAX-19®, developed by Prof. Petrovsky’s group at Flinders University has commenced human trials in South Australia. This Phase 1 human trial is the 'first' in the Southern Hemisphere which were started at the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) to test a promising new COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Recently, COVAX-19 has entered Phase-II clinical trials.
 
Prof. Petrovsky elaborated about the current scenario about various vaccines in the clinical trials and showcased the design, development as well as preclinical data on COVAX-19 research. Prof. Kamal Nain Singh, Chairman Department of Chemistry, Prof. Sukhbir Kaur, Department of Zoology, Dr. Deepak Salunke, Dr. Subash Sahoo and Dr. Ramesh Kataria from Department of Chemistry, Dr. Rachna Singh, Dept. of Microbial Biotechnology and Dr. Sandip Pawar, UIPS organized the event. Total 60 participants from various institutes from India joined for this webinar.