This ePanel will celebrate the inaugural winners of the Michelson Philanthropies & Science Prize for Immunology, an international prize that focuses on transformative research in human immunology, with trans-disease applications to accelerate vaccine and immunotherapeutic discovery. The prize is intended to encourage and support young investigators from a wide range of disciplines and will be awarded annually based on work done in the past three years.

This year’s recipients are:

• Grand prize winner Paul Bastard, MD, PhD, (Laboratory of Human Genetics of Infectious Diseases, Institut Imagine, INSERM & University of Paris and The Rockefeller University, New York)
  Why do people die from COVID-19?: Autoantibodies neutralizing type I interferons increase with age.
• Finalist Scott B. Biering, PhD, (Division of Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley)
  One antibody to treat them all: Conserved flavivirus protein holds potential as target for versatile vaccines and therapies.
• Finalist Lisa Wagar, PhD, (Institute for Immunology, University of California, Irvine)
  Small centers of defense: Deciphering immune responses to viruses and vaccines using human tonsil organoids.

Following welcome remarks by Dr. Gary Michelson, Michelson Philanthropies founder and co-chair, Bill Moran, Publisher of AAAS/Science, United States Senator Alex Padilla of California, and Seth Scanlon, Editor of AAAS/Science, the recipients will present their award winning research and participate in a Q&A with the audience.