Professor Dan Hung Barouch
King Faisal Prize in Medicine 2023 Laureate
Topic: "Pandemics and Vaccine Development"
There's plenty of people who can solve many of the easy problems; it takes a lot more effort to solve the hard ones
Dan Hung Barouch received his undergraduate B.A. degree summa cum laude from Harvard College in 1993, his Ph.D. degree from Oxford University in 1995 on a Marshall Scholarship, and his M.D. degree summa cum laude from Harvard Medical School in 1999. He completed clinical training in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2001 and in Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2004. He founded and currently serves as the Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and he is the William Bosworth Castle Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Barouch’s laboratory focuses on studying the immunology and pathogenesis of viral infections and developing novel vaccine and treatment strategies. He pioneered the creation of a series of vaccine platform technologies, including novel recombinant adenovirus vectors such as Ad26. He utilized this technology to develop vaccine candidates for multiple pathogens of global significance, including HIV-1, Zika virus, tuberculosis, and most recently SARS-CoV-2. He utilized the Ad26 vector to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, which led to the Johnson & Johnson Ad26.COV2.S vaccine that has now been administered to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. This vaccine is stable without the need for subzero freezing and can be produced inexpensively, which are critical properties for a global COVID-19 vaccine. Dr. Barouch has authored over 350 research papers. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2020, and he is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Oswald Avery Award from the Infectious Diseases Society of America (2012), Bostonian of the Year (2016, 2021), Best Academic Research Team from the World Vaccine Congress (2019), Bloomberg 50 Most Influential People (2020), Global Citizen Hero from the American Red Cross (2021), STAT Madness Winner (2021), Ray Stata Leadership and Innovation Award from the Massachusetts High Technology Council (2021), George Ledlie Prize from Harvard University (2021), and Hero Among Us from the Boston Celtics (2021).
This biography was written in the year the prize was awarded.
