Dr. Gary Nabel delivered the 29th Chappel Memorial Lecture at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College last week, highlighting many advances in harnessing the immune system to fight human disease.
Nabel is Chief Scientific Officer, Sanofi Global Research and Development. He also serves as a Senior Vice President and Deputy to the President for Global R&D and in this capacity chairs the Strategic Development and Scientific Advisory Council and Ebola Response Coordination Team for the company.
There have been incredible advances in the use of the immune system with infectious diseases and cancer, Nabel said, touching on work related to HIV/AIDS, cancer immunotherapy, as well as the Dengue and Zika viruses.
However, he added, there isn’t a system in place that does global surveillance that can translate that knowledge into interventions “that could put us ahead of the curve.”
A better system is needed to engage the public sector, academics, foundations and industry to come together in how to respond, he added. “If we don’t, I can assure it is Zika today it will be something else tomorrow. I think we should be smarter than that and really learn from our past and do better in the future.”
From left:
Marilyn Chappel, Dr. Gary Nabel and Dr. Cliff Chappel.
Watch Dr. Nabel’s talk here:
The Chappel Memorial Lecture was established in 1988 by Dr. Clifford Chappel, OVC 1950, in memory of his father, Herbert James Chappel. Since that time, internationally reknowned researchers have been invited to the University of Guelph to summarize their current work and discuss the development and progression of their program over the years. The lecture and informal meetings are meant to act as a source of inspiration for those engaged in, or considering, graduate studies in biomedical research.