Texas Children's Hospital's Maria Elena Bottazzi, PhD, Honduran-trained biomedical scientist and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development, has been honored with The Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare.
Dr. Bottazzi's recognition comes as a result of her remarkable contributions to developing open-source, patent-free COVID-19 vaccine technology. This prestigious award, jointly created by The Arnold P. Gold Foundation and The Vilcek Foundation, aims to acknowledge foreign-born individuals who have made extraordinary impacts on humanism in healthcare through their professional achievements in the United States.
Four takeaways:
1. Dr. Bottazzi, in collaboration with her lab partner Dr. Peter Hotez, has spearheaded the development of an innovative patent-free, open-source COVID-19 vaccine technology. By utilizing a traditional recombinant protein-based approach, this technology allows for large-scale production of vaccines, thereby enabling widespread accessibility for global immunization. Local manufacturers in India and Indonesia are already producing millions of doses under the names Corbevax and IndoVac, respectively.
2. Drs. Bottazzi and Hotez have garnered significant recognition on a global scale. In 2022, the duo was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, further acknowledging the magnitude of their vaccine development work. They also received the 2023 Lyndon B. Johnson Moral Courage Award from the Houston Holocaust Museum and were honored as Fast Company's 2022 Most Creative People in Business.
3. Dr. Bottazzi has taken charge of several community events aimed at providing education to Latinos regarding the development of COVID-19 vaccines, and served on various local and national task forces. In 2022, she participated in a panel at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting discussing the importance of global vaccine equality.
4. Dr. Huda Zoghbi, Director of The Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital, expressed her admiration for Dr. Bottazzi's unwavering commitment to helping the most vulnerable and ensuring universal access to life-saving vaccines. Dr. Zoghbi believes that this well-deserved recognition will serve as an inspiration for young women and immigrants to realize their potential and make significant contributions to their communities.