Sarah Gilbert

Dame Sarah Catherine Gilbert is a British vaccinologist who is Saïd Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford and co-founder of Vaccitech. Gilbert specialises in the development of vaccines against influenza and emerging viral pathogens. She led the development and testing of the universal flu vaccine, which underwent clinical trials in 2011. On New Year's Day 2019 Gilbert read on ProMED-mail about four people in China suffering from a strange pneumonia of unknown cause, in Wuhan, China. Within two weeks a vaccine had been designed at Oxford against the new pathogen. On 30 December 2020, the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine she co-developed with the Oxford Vaccine Group was approved for use in the United Kingdom. As of November 2021 more than 2 billion doses of the vaccine have been released to more than 170 countries worldwide.