Hanneke Schuitemaker is a Dutch virologist, the Global Head of Viral Vaccine Discovery and Translational Medicine at

Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...

's Janssen Vaccines & Prevention, and a Professor of Virology at the Amsterdam University Medical Center of the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

(since 2004). She has been involved in the development of Janssen's Ebola vaccine and is involved in the development of a

universal flu vaccine A universal flu vaccine is a flu vaccine that is effective against all influenza strains regardless of the virus sub type, antigenic drift or antigenic shift.Sherwood Linda M, Prescott's Microbiology (10th ed.) McGraw-Hill Education , 2017 Hence ...

HIV vaccine An HIV vaccine is a potential vaccine that could be either a preventive vaccine or a therapeutic vaccine, which means it would either protect individuals from being infected with HIV or treat HIV-infected individuals. It is thought that an HIV v ...

, RSV vaccine and

COVID-19 vaccine A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19). Prior to the COVID19 pandemic, an e ...

Early life and education

Schuitemaker (1964) grew up in the Netherlands. Her mother was a bookkeeper and her father was an electrical engineer. As a child she was fascinated by medicine, and after earning her undergraduate degree she completed a

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programme in AIDS pathogenesis at the

Research and career

Schuitemaker started to research

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

in 1989. Whilst interested in the virus itself, Schuitemaker also wanted to learn more about the patients who suffered from the disease, and took part in a patient outreach program. Her interactions in this program strengthened her motivation to better understand the disease, help find a vaccine and treatments. She studied the pathogenesis of

HIV-1 The subtypes of HIV include two major types, HIV type 1 (HIV-1) and HIV type 2 (HIV-2). HIV-1 is related to viruses found in chimpanzees and gorillas living in western Africa, while HIV-2 viruses are related to viruses found in the sooty mangabey, ...

throughout her career. Her early research focussed on whether

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of ''Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the immune ...

could infect other cells in the body than just T cells, including cells in the brain and lungs. She started working at Sanquin, the Netherlands blood supply foundation based in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

, where she was made Head of the department of Clinical Viro-Immunology in 1998. Schuitemaker has been involved in policy, and has held advisory positions on several vaccine charities. From 2003 to 2004, she was a visiting scientist at the

La Jolla La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood within the city of San Diego, California, United States, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. La Jolla is surrounded on ...

Scripps Research Scripps Research, previously known as The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), is a nonprofit American medical research facility that focuses on research and education in the biomedical sciences. Headquartered in San Diego, California, the institu ...

Institute. Schuitemaker joined the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam in 2008, where she was made Chair of Experimental Immunology. She moved to

Crucell Janssen Vaccines, formerly Crucell, is a biotechnology company specializing in vaccines and biopharmaceutical technologies. It was formed when Johnson & Johnson acquired the Dutch biotech company Crucell based in Leiden and placed it in their ph ...

in 2010, which, at the time, was an independent biotechnology company. Two weeks later, Crucell was acquired by ''Janssen Vaccines'', part of

. She was appointed Global Head of Viral Vaccines Discovery and Translational Medicine. At Janssen, Schuitemaker worked on the

. She returned to working on vaccinations to protect against HIV-1. Schuitemaker demonstrated the efficacy of the adenovirus/protein vaccines against

simian immunodeficiency virus ''Simian immunodeficiency virus'' (''SIV'') is a species of retrovirus that cause persistent infections in at least 45 species of non-human primates. Based on analysis of strains found in four species of monkeys from Bioko Island, which was isola ...

rhesus macaque The rhesus macaque (''Macaca mulatta''), colloquially rhesus monkey, is a species of Old World monkey. There are between six and nine recognised subspecies that are split between two groups, the Chinese-derived and the Indian-derived. Generally b ...

s. In 2018, Schuitemaker's vaccine regime was shown to induce an immune response to HIV in humans. Results of ''Imbokodo'', an investigation into the potential for this vaccine to save the lives of thousands of young women in

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

, are expected in 2021. Another study, ''Mosaico'', will see 3,800 individuals taking part in a

Phase 3 clinical trial The phases of clinical research are the stages in which scientists conduct experiments with a health intervention to obtain sufficient evidence for a process considered effective as a medical treatment. For drug development, the clinical phases ...

of the vaccine. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Janssen looked to develop a

. Their approach started with a single viral genome, which was being tested as of March 2020. Schuitemaker estimated that it would take between 12 and 18 months to manufacture a vaccine. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Schuitemaker announced Johnson & Johnson's ambition to develop a vaccine against the unknown infectious disease. Her team's approach started with the discovery of the genetic code of SARS-CoV-2, the cause of the disease COVID-19. The various vaccine candidates have been tested from March 2020. In mid-May, she announced that Janssen's most hopeful vaccine variant will be tested on humans in July 2020. In November 2020, Jansen Vaccines announced that the production of the COVID vaccine was delayed by several months due to the occurrence of an unknown disease in one test subject in phase 3. The US regulator FDA approved the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine for use on February 27, 2021. Approval by the European Medicines Agency was given on March 11.

Selected publications

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Personal life

Schuitemaker has three sons.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schuitemaker, Hanneke Living people Women virologists University of Amsterdam alumni Dutch women scientists Dutch virologists HIV/AIDS researchers Dutch medical researchers Women medical researchers 20th-century Dutch scientists 21st-century Dutch scientists 20th-century women scientists 21st-century women scientists 1964 births Johnson & Johnson people 20th-century Dutch women 20th-century Dutch people COVID-19 researchers Ebola researchers