William Paul Duprex (pronounced ; born 1968) is a British scientist and advocate for

vaccine A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifie ...

s and global health. He serves as Director of the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

's Center for Vaccine Research and Regional Biocontainment Laboratory. Duprex holds the Jonas Salk Chair in Vaccine Research. He is also a professor of

microbiology Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, prot ...

and molecular genetics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the ''

Journal of General Virology ''Journal of General Virology'' is a not-for-profit peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Microbiology Society. The journal was established in 1967 and covers research into animal viruses, insect viruses, plants viruses, fungal viruses, ...

'', which is published by the Microbiology Society, and a senior editor of mSphere, published by the American Society for Microbiology. Duprex is an expert in

measles Measles is a highly contagious infectious disease caused by measles virus. Symptoms usually develop 10–12 days after exposure to an infected person and last 7–10 days. Initial symptoms typically include fever, often greater than , cough, ...

and

mumps virus The mumps virus (MuV) is the virus that causes mumps. MuV contains a single-stranded, negative-sense genome made of ribonucleic acid (RNA). Its genome is about 15,000 nucleotides in length and contains seven genes that encode nine proteins. The g ...

es and studies

viral spillover Spillover infection, also known as pathogen spillover and spillover event, occurs when a reservoir population with a high pathogen prevalence comes into contact with a novel host population. The pathogen is transmitted from the reservoir population ...

from animals to humans, including the

SARS-CoV-2 virus Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a p ...

that caused 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 ...

. Duprex is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.

Early life and education

Duprex, who goes by his middle name, Paul, was born to a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

family in Lurgan,

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

, during the violent political conflict known as

The Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...

. He attended King's Park Primary School,

Lurgan College Lurgan College is a selective, non-denominational, co-educational 14-19 Grammar School, situated in the town of Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. History In lieu of the establishment of Lurgan Model primary school in 1863, the town of Lur ...

, and Queen's University Belfast (QUB), where he earned a BS in

biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

and

genetics Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar wor ...

in 1990 and a PhD in molecular virology in 1995. As a boy at King's Park Primary, he first discovered a love of science while observing tadpoles transform into frogs. Later, at Lurgan College, he discovered microbiology, experimenting with his classmates' saliva to determine which toothpaste was the best at killing the bacteria that colonize the mouth.

Career

Early career

Duprex stayed on at QUB as a postdoctoral research fellow from 1995 to 1999, studying how measles virus infects the brain, and served as a lecturer in molecular virology and biochemistry from 1999 to 2010, during which time he studied

mumps MUMPS ("Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System"), or M, is an imperative, high-level programming language with an integrated transaction processing key–value database. It was originally developed at Massachusetts Gener ...

, canine distemper, and

foot-and-mouth disease virus ''Foot-and-mouth disease virus'' (FMDV) is the pathogen that causes foot-and-mouth disease. It is a picornavirus, the prototypical member of the genus ''Aphthovirus''. The disease, which causes vesicles (blisters) in the mouth and feet of cattl ...

biocontainment One use of the concept of biocontainment is related to laboratory biosafety and pertains to microbiology laboratories in which the physical containment of pathogenic organisms or agents (bacteria, viruses, and toxins) is required, usually by is ...

at the Pirbright Institute.

Emerging infectious diseases, zoonosis, and vaccine development

From 2006 to 2007, Duprex worked 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 ...

as a Principal Scientist and Head of the Department of Emerging Sciences and Technologies, working to create heat-stable vaccines that are more suitable for distributing throughout the developing world. Duprex moved to

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

in 2010 to take the positions of associate professor of Microbiology and Director of Cell and Tissue Imaging in the

National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories The National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, or NEIDL, is a biosciences facility of Boston University located near Boston Medical Center on Albany Street in the South End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The lab is part of a nati ...

, where he trained to use "space-suit-virology" in a BSL-4 lab to understand pathogenesis in

paramyxoviruses ''Paramyxoviridae'' (from Greek ''para-'' “by the side of” and ''myxa'' “mucus”) is a family of negative-strand RNA viruses in the order ''Mononegavirales''. Vertebrates serve as natural hosts. Diseases associated with this family include ...

such as measles, mumps, and respiratory syncytial virus in humans, as well as Hendra virus in horses and

Newcastle disease virus Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

in chickens. During this time, he won funding from the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was l ...

Grand Challenges in Global Health to continue his work with heat-stable measles vaccines. In 2018, Duprex became director of the Center for Vaccine Research at the University of Pittsburgh, where he continues to study the evolution of human and animal respiratory viruses such as measles, mumps and SARS-CoV-2, with the practical goals of developing new vaccines for emerging diseases as well as tools that predict viral spillover from animal reservoirs into humans.

COVID-19 response

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Duprex has used his public profile on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

to share information about the virus and promote vaccination, which he had been outspoken about prior to the pandemic. Since COVID-19 emerged, Duprex has appeared as a subject matter expert in television, radio, and print news outlets. Duprex's team began working with live SARS-CoV-2 virus in February 2020, immediately helping to validate a PCR-based COVID-19 test developed by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). In April 2020, Duprex secured one of the first Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI) grants funding the creation of a COVID-19 vaccine, together with partners at the

Pasteur Institute The Pasteur Institute (french: Institut Pasteur) is a French non-profit private foundation dedicated to the study of biology, micro-organisms, diseases, and vaccines. It is named after Louis Pasteur, who invented pasteurization and vaccines f ...

in Paris and Themis Bioscience in Austria. This particular vaccine was designed to use a recombinant measles vaccine as a vector for introducing SARS-CoV-2 spike protein into the body.

Merck Merck refers primarily to the German Merck family and three companies founded by the family, including: * the Merck Group, a German chemical, pharmaceutical and life sciences company founded in 1668 ** Merck Serono (known as EMD Serono in the Unite ...

acquired Themis in June 2020 and abandoned all COVID-19 vaccine research in January 2021. Since then, Duprex's team has been focused on understanding how the SARS-CoV-2 virus mutates to create new viral variants, including

Delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta") * Delta Air Lines, US * Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 Delta may also re ...

and

Omicron Omicron (; uppercase Ο, lowercase ο, ell, όμικρον) is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. This letter is derived from the Phoenician letter ayin: . In classical Greek, omicron represented the close-mid back rounded vowel in contras ...

, which the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...

declared

variants of concern The term variant of concern (VOC) for SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, is a category used for variants of the virus where mutations in their spike protein receptor binding domain (RBD) substantially increase binding affinity (e.g., N501Y) in ...

. With collaborators at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, he is working on improving vaccine delivery systems that can more safely and effectively reach remote parts of the developing world.

Selected publications

Intractable Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) and Prolonged Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Replication in a Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Modified T-Cell Therapy Recipient: A Case Study
(2021). ''Clin Infect Dis.,'' 73(3): e815–e821.
Inhalable Nanobody (PiN-21) prevents and treats SARS-CoV-2 infections in Syrian hamsters at ultra-low doses
(2021). ''Science Advances,'' 7 (22), eabh0319.
Versatile and multivalent nanobodies efficiently neutralize SARS-CoV-2
(2020). ''Science,'' 370 (6523), 1479–1484.
Animal models for COVID-19
(2020). ''Nature'', 586:509-515. PMID 32967005.
Persistence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 in aerosol suspensions
(2020). ''Emerging infectious diseases,'' 26 (9), 2168.
Needle-free delivery of measles virus vaccine to the lower respiratory tract of non-human primates elicits optimal immunity and protection
(2017). ''Nature Vaccines,'' 2 (1), 1–11.
Recent mumps outbreaks in vaccinated populations: no evidence of immune escape
(2012). ''Journal of virology,'' 86 (1), 615-620 103 2012.
Early target cells of measles virus after aerosol infection of non-human primates
(2011). ''PLoS pathogens,'' 7 (1), e1001263.
Ligand-induced conformational changes allosterically activate Toll-like receptor 9
(2007). ''Nature immunology,'' 8 (7), 772–779.
Predominant Infection of CD150+ Lymphocytes and Dendritic Cells during Measles Virus Infection of Macaques
(2007). ''PLoS pathogens,'' 3 (11), e178.
Hemagglutinin protein of wild-type measles virus activates toll-like receptor 2 signaling
(2002). ''Journal of virology,'' 76 (17), 8729–8736.
Observation of measles virus cell-to-cell spread in astrocytoma cells by using a green fluorescent protein-expressing recombinant virus
(1999). ''Journal of virology,'' 73 (11), 9568–9575.

Awards and honors

* 2013 - Gardner Prize Lectureship, European Society for Clinical Virology * 2018 - Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology * 2021 - Carnegie Science Awards (25th Year): Chairman's Award

References

External links

*
University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Duprex, Paul 1968 births American microbiologists Immunologists Virologists Living people People from Lurgan Alumni of Queen's University Belfast University of Pittsburgh people Johnson & Johnson people Scientists from Northern Ireland