On 26 September 2023, Johan van der Plas successfully defended his PhD thesis titled ‘Advances in clinical development for vaccines and therapeutics against respiratory virus infections’ at Leiden University.
The work for Johan’s thesis was conducted in a turbulent time for the fields of respiratory viral diseases, vaccinology and clinical pharmacology. He initially began with work on clinical trials investigating novel vaccines and adjuvants for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and Influenza. Then, half-way through his PhD-project that set out to investigate innovations in clinical development for respiratory viruses, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.
The COVID-19 pandemic posed an enormous challenge for the entire world, including medicine. However, driven by an unprecedented societal demand for treatment and vaccines for COVID-19, the pandemic also led to many innovations in clinical and translational medicine. With limited evidence on possible treatments against SARS-CoV-2, existing compounds were first experimentally administered to treat COVID-19. In parallel, new vaccines and drugs were expeditiously brought from bench to bed. The pandemic also illustrated that the traditional linear development paradigm for therapeutic interventions was not suitable to meet the quest for necessary innovation.
Johan’s thesis consists of studies investigating vaccines and therapeutics against respiratory viruses. The first sections focus on novel vaccines and adjuvants for RSV and influenza (pre-pandemic). The last section focusses both on a new and repurposed compound against SARS-CoV-2, explores novel methods of accelerating vaccine trials during a pandemic and concludes with an overview of several procedures that could expedite (early) clinical development during a pandemic. You can read his thesis here.
