Dr. Florian Krammer, PhD is a Professor of Vaccinology in the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, whose lab investigates the antibody responses towards glycoproteins on the surface of influenza viruses. He recently authored a review in the journal Nature that provides an overview of SAR-CoV-2 vaccines currently in clinical development. In this episode, we discuss how immunologists & virologists reacted to COVID-19 during the dawn of the outbreak, different factors that have been found to influence COVID-19 disease pathology, and the similarities/differences between SARS-CoV-2 and other viruses. Furthermore, we discuss the pros/cons of different types of COVID-19 vaccines from various angles including therapeutic modality, efficacy, side effect profile, and ease of manufacturing & distribution. Finally, Dr. Krammer provides a possible outlook for the global vaccine rollout process and proposes ways in which the biomedical research can improve pandemic preparedness.Hosted by Cynthia Steinhardt and Joe Varriale.