Kathy Fernando, the senior vice president, head of Pfizer Ignite and Pfizer CentreOne, has had a professional trajectory marked by pivotal serendipities. One occurred when attending a seminar at the University of Pennsylvania, where she met Dr. Drew Weissman, a prominent immunologist and RNA vaccine researcher. Weissman, along with Katalin Karikó, recently received the Nobel Prize in medicine for discoveries that led to the development of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
Hearing Weissman first speak, Fernando recalls being “just blown away” by his scientific creativity. “He just took things to the next level,” she said. She would go on to study under his tutelage, eventually co-authoring a paper with him on HIV that was published in the journal Blood in 2007. The paper explored the potential of mRNA in an HIV vaccine, and the challenges associated with triggering an unintended immune response from the approach. “When you gave mRNA, the bod…