Rolando Pajón: From Cuba to Moderna – A Journey of Scientific Achievements and Vaccine Development

Rolando Pajón has not set foot in his native Cuba for more than 15 years. Born and raised in a very modest home, he was nevertheless able to study medicine and, over the years, ended up directing a research team at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology of Cuba, one of the most important in Latin America.

It was the beginning of a long scientific career, in which he always felt attracted to the world of vaccines. In fact, before he left and left behind his ex-wife and two young daughters, he worked on a vaccine against meningococcus. And he made time to write popular science children’s books: Alejandro and the mutants, Alejandro and the vaccines, Alejandro and the bacteria.

The speed with which we achieved a coronavirus vaccine set a standard for generating solutions against other viruses, says the expert. | Photo: Courtesy of Manizales Mayor’s Office

Leaving without a return ticket happened like this: in Cuba, he and his team were trying to carry out a trial for which a reagent that was not easy to obtain was necessary. Pajón made contact with a scientist from the University of Calgary, in Canada. And since none of his collaborators were given permission to leave the island, he ended up traveling.

He knew the personal cost that this implied: the Cuban Government does not allow the family of someone who has “escaped” in this way to travel and considers them a traitor. That translated into not seeing his daughters for a long time.

He stayed in Canada for two years. And with his mind set on the idea of ​​doing something more than working with laboratory mice – “we are very good at making vaccines for mice and curing their cancer,” he says – he set out to study new vaccine candidates against respiratory pathogens, take them out of the experiments with animals and take them to tests in humans.

That’s the way he arrived at Moderna. Today he works there as medical director and was one of the architects of the first vaccine that the world knew against covid-19. Although this and others have saved the lives of millions of people, it is no less true that science continues to fight due to the mutation of the virus and the dozens of subvariants that continue to emerge. Pajón talks about that story with SEMANA.

SEMANA: One of the lessons that perhaps the pandemic left us is that science was able to speed up the development of new vaccines.

Rolando Pajón (RP): It’s true. The speed with which we achieved a coronavirus vaccine set a standard for generating solutions against other viruses. Before they asked us how we did it so quickly. And now, in other vaccine candidates, they question us why we are delaying. Covid-19 brought to the table the need to innovate and the acceleration factor.

According to the ASUE authorization, the Moderna vaccine will be available to people over 18 years of age with a high risk of complications, who have received at least the first vaccine against COVID-19. | Photo: Getty Images

SEMANA: Another of the factors that exposed the pandemic were the so-called anti-vaccines. How does a scientist deal with the idea that someone would rather get sick and die than get vaccinated?

RP: I tell them that vaccines have been the greatest success of human beings in terms of health after the purification of water. The vast majority of us can have a conversation like this, for example, because our parents vaccinated us. We didn’t get measles, rubella or smallpox nor did polio kill us because our parents vaccinated us.

SEMANA: Is it possible that the pandemic will repeat itself?

RP: Yes, unfortunately it is going to happen again. History is a great teacher. If we go back to the 1918 pandemic, which caused many deaths, there were people who denied the virus and the measures to combat the disease. And in 2020, with covid, the same thing happened: a global pandemic that brings many deaths and human skepticism. The climate crisis will leave us on the verge of another pandemic. There are changes in human behavior, migratory flows and hyperconnectivity that means that an infectious disease does not concentrate in a population, but rather spreads. A long time ago we had a large spread of Zika and a high incidence of microcephaly in Brazil due to this infection among pregnant women. There was monkeypox, which started in Africa and became endemic. Pandemics will be cyclical, but the difference is that we will be able to generate a vaccine candidate and have clinical studies in just days.

SEMANA: How is science counteracting this permanent threat?

RP: For some viruses we work preventively on vaccines. We have a candidate in phase one, in conjunction with the United States National Institute of Health, against the Nipah virus, which causes a very lethal disease, with pandemic potential, and affects India. We have identified another 20 diseases with pandemic potential and we are working to advance science in the face of a disaster.

SEMANA: In terms of vaccines, what is the recommendation for the current phase of covid-19?

RP: Covid has not disappeared, people have lowered their guard and if this continues there may be a new global peak of infections. In the United States, between 250 and 400 people die from the disease every day. And although the risk of hospitalization and death in children is lower, it is not zero. In the pediatric population it is higher than other viruses, such as chickenpox. We must be clear that, even for a person who has already had Covid, the protection provided by the course of the disease is very limited.

If the person was vaccinated in 2021 and did not do so again, that vaccine protected them well against the virus that was circulating at that time, but the one that is circulating now is a subvariant of omicron and is making people sick who have not gotten their vaccine. booster dose, which have not updated their immune response, says Pajón. | Photo: getty images

WEEK: That is, an adult today should have how many doses?

RP: The answer depends on when you last got vaccinated. Because if you were vaccinated in 2021 and did not do so again, that vaccine protected you well against the virus that was circulating at that time, but the one that is circulating now is a subvariant of omicron and is making people sick who have not received their dose. booster, who have not updated their immune response. My recommendation is that people get the most up-to-date vaccine available.

SEMANA: Another front they are working on is latent viruses. Why are they important?

RP: A latent virus is characterized by infecting humans and staying with us for life. For example, cytomegalovirus, herpes, chickenpox, Epstein-Barr virus. They are viruses for which it has been difficult to develop vaccines.week: Why is cytomegalovirus worrying?rP: Because it infects the person, with symptoms in some cases. Once these disappear, the virus remains in the body and is reborn periodically. If we talk about a pregnant woman and she becomes infected, the probability that she will transmit that virus to the baby is very high. Infections due to this virus generate 35,000 cases a year in the United States. And a large percentage of babies who become infected are left with neurological consequences, such as vision or hearing problems and motor coordination problems. The aim is to reduce the occurrence of infections in neonatal patients through vaccination in adults of reproductive age.

WEEK: What is the incidence of latent viruses in the Americas?

RP: Cytomegalovirus has the highest seropositivity rate in the world, in some regions at more than 80 percent. The cytomegalovirus vaccine is in phase three and we are working to demonstrate its effectiveness in an adult population of reproductive age, mainly women, to break the chain of infection and so that fewer children are born with sequelae. The idea is to have the vaccine ready in 2025.

2023-09-09 06:11:36
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