Say Goodbye to Booster Shots – New Vaccine Technology for Long-Lasting Protection

00:00:00: Have you already made an appointment for your booster shot?

00:00:04: It's a question many of us hear every autumn,

00:00:07: vaccines against respiratory viruses such as influenza, often need

00:00:11: to be updated or administered again, because immune

00:00:14: protection can wane and viruses continue to evolve?

00:00:17: But what if a single vaccination could provide protection for years?

00:00:22: In this episode of InFact, host and

00:00:25: science journalist Julia Demann speaks with Dr.

00:00:28: Henning Jacobsen and 

00:00:29: Casper Silvis from the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research.

00:00:33: As part of the ENDURIVAC project, they are developing a new

00:00:38: vaccine technology designed to provide long lasting protection against respiratory pathogens.

00:00:43: Their surprising tool a mouse cytomegalovirus.

00:00:46: How can a virus that does not make us

00:00:50: sick train our immune system over the long term?

00:00:54: And could this technology eventually make regular booster vaccinations unnecessary?

00:00:59: Let's find out.

00:01:00: Hello.

00:01:00: Henning Jacobsen and Casper Silvis.

00:01:03: Very nice to have you here.

00:01:05: We are talking remote to each other.

00:01:08: I'm sitting in Cologne and you're in Henning.

00:01:12: You're developing vaccines against viruses that, in fact, are respiratory tracts.

00:01:16: They are already vaccines, for example, against the flu, against

00:01:20: Covid 19, and now also against the respiratory syncytial virus.

00:01:25: How do you plan to improve them?

00:01:28: First of all, hi.

00:01:29: And yes, what we want to do is we wish to

00:01:33: develop vaccines that offer durable immunity, but not only durable immunity.

00:01:37: We wish to elicit durable immunity after a single dose.

00:01:40: Especially the parents among you will understand that when you

00:01:43: have kids, you run to the doctor quite often

00:01:47: to get booster shots and yet another booster shot.

00:01:50: And this never ends.

00:01:51: What we aim to do is to develop the technology that

00:01:55: allows you to only go once, and then that's it.

00:01:58: Why don't the existing vaccines last as long?

00:02:01: And what exactly do you need to do to

00:02:04: make a vaccine that provides longer lasting protection?

00:02:06: That's not a trivial question because you need

00:02:09: to look at that a little bit differentiated.

00:02:12: Most vaccines out there actually provide quite durable immunity when it

00:02:16: comes to protection against disease, severe disease specifically, or even death.

00:02:20: Right.

00:02:21: But what they usually don't do for a very long

00:02:24: time is to protect against infection itself and mild disease.

00:02:28: This is something that has become super obvious during

00:02:32: the Covid pandemic, where people after vaccination did not

00:02:35: get severely sick anymore or died following infection.

00:02:38: But and especially with all this testing that we did, we

00:02:42: realized we get infected and we still get mild disease.

00:02:46: And people got really annoyed by that.

00:02:48: And the reason for that is that

00:02:50: vaccines build two types of immunity.

00:02:52: They build effector immunity immediately after vaccination.

00:02:55: That means your body has antibodies and T cells that

00:02:58: immediately jump on the on the virus or bacterium and

00:03:02: kill them, block them so you cannot get sick.

00:03:05: But this effector immunity fades over time, quite rapidly, actually.

00:03:08: And instead, your body builds the immune memory.

00:03:11: And the immune memory is super good in protecting you against

00:03:15: disease and death because it can quickly recall the immunity.

00:03:18: But that takes a bit of time.

00:03:21: So the recall immunity, the memory usually only works after

00:03:25: you got infected, and for some diseases, that is enough

00:03:28: time to make you slightly sick before they act.

00:03:31: What we want to do is we wish to develop a

00:03:35: vaccine technology that allows us to keep up the factor immunity

00:03:39: for a long time so that you don't get sick at

00:03:43: all, and therefore you're using a special virus as vector.

00:03:46: Which virus is it and why does it doesn't make

00:03:50: us sick even though it stimulates our immune system?

00:03:53: Yes.

00:03:54: So for this we use the murine cytomegalovirus, short MCMV.

00:03:57: And this is a herpes virus.

00:04:00: And that's all of the trick.

00:04:02: If we immunologists want to put something forever into humans, we

00:04:06: think about herpes viruses because they don't get away anymore, right?

00:04:11: People usually don't like that.

00:04:13: But if you think about the

00:04:15: vaccine approach, that's something nice, right?

00:04:17: A vaccine that lasts forever.

00:04:19: So the underlying idea is to use a herpes

00:04:22: virus to elicit durable or even lifelong immunity.

00:04:24: That concept is not completely novel.

00:04:26: People try already to develop vaccines that

00:04:29: are based on human herpes viruses.

00:04:31: But there's some caveats with that.

00:04:32: And also, when I speak to my friends

00:04:35: and family, they are not super motivated to

00:04:38: get infected with yet another herpes virus.

00:04:40: Right?

00:04:40: So that is something that makes our idea very special.

00:04:44: So my professor Luka Cicin-Sain has

00:04:47: developed over the last 20 years.

00:04:49: The idea to not use a human

00:04:52: herpes virus, but the mouse cytomegalovirus instead.

00:04:55: And there is a very well defined mouse cytomegalovirus herpes

00:04:59: virus that only can be found in mice, and that

00:05:03: is known for decades that it cannot make humans sick.

00:05:07: And this is what we're going to use.

00:05:10: And we have shown that this virus can actually infect humans.

00:05:14: This was not really known, but it can do so.

00:05:17: And we hypothesized that it can

00:05:19: also go into latency in humans.

00:05:21: It can hide in our body and

00:05:23: therefore elicit this super durable immunity.

00:05:25: But it cannot grow.

00:05:26: It cannot replicate.

00:05:27: And therefore it can also not make us sick.

00:05:30: And this is what we now aim for.

00:05:33: But when I think about other vaccines,

00:05:35: antibodies and immune cells eventually wear out.

00:05:38: But why isn't this a thing with your vaccine?

00:05:41: Yeah, that's that's really the point.

00:05:43: So what our vaccine is supposed to do is that it

00:05:47: goes into your body and it establishes a so-called antigen depot

00:05:50: because the herpes virus, it will stay in your body.

00:05:54: And from time to time it will try to

00:05:57: reactivate and to grow, which doesn't work in humans.

00:06:00: Actually, it doesn't work in any species except for mice,

00:06:04: but it will express the antigen that is the component

00:06:07: of the antigen to which the vaccine will provide protection.

00:06:11: So, for example, the protein of RSV or SARS-CoV-2.

00:06:14: And this will happen for forever, or

00:06:16: at least for a very long time.

00:06:19: And this reoccurring stimulation of your immune system

00:06:22: makes sure that your body always has a

00:06:25: decent level of antibodies and CD8 T cells.

00:06:29: So killer T cells ready to go.

00:06:31: So you brought someone else along?

00:06:34: Casper Silvis.

00:06:35: It's your project partner in the ENDURIVAC project,

00:06:38: which literally translates to long lasting vaccination.

00:06:41: What role does Casper play in the project?

00:06:44: Yes.

00:06:44: So Casper is my anticipated co-founder along with my boss.

00:06:48: So Luka Cicin-Sain and also Casper's boss, Kathrin de la Rosa.

00:06:52: The four of us actually aim to make a

00:06:55: spin off here in Braunschweig to develop this technology.

00:06:59: And this journey is not only very,

00:07:01: very interesting, it's also very challenging.

00:07:03: And this is where we realized that a partner

00:07:07: in crime here would be a very good solution.

00:07:10: And this is where Casper came into play.

00:07:13: So we teamed up to go on this journey together.

00:07:17: So let's talk, Casper, nice to have you here.

00:07:20: Hello, Casper.

00:07:21: Just tell me, which possibilities does your vaccine technology have?

00:07:24: Yeah, that's a very nice question.

00:07:27: We're currently bringing together two technologies developed at the HZI.

00:07:30: The vector Henning has just explained

00:07:33: is the carrier for the vaccine.

00:07:35: But every vaccine also requires antigens,

00:07:37: like Henning also has already explained.

00:07:40: And I'm looking at an aspect of vaccine antigens

00:07:43: that is often overlooked and try to improve it.

00:07:47: Let me try to explain.

00:07:49: Like most antigens can naturally bind to structures

00:07:52: in your own body, for instance receptors.

00:07:55: These receptors have the potential to mask parts of the

00:07:59: antigen that might be crucial for antibodies to recognize.

00:08:02: Another point is that an interaction between the antigen

00:08:06: and receptors could lead to undesirable side effects.

00:08:09: We want to unmask the antigens so that they

00:08:12: are safer and available for the immune system.

00:08:15: Therefore, we're systematically designing antigens that do not bind

00:08:19: to the receptors while retaining recognition by the protective

00:08:22: antibodies, particularly for the MCMV, which builds the antigen

00:08:26: depot that produces a lot of antigen over time.

00:08:29: Having the safest possible antigen is really

00:08:32: important and not for every antigen.

00:08:34: This is crucial for the effectiveness of the vaccine because

00:08:37: we have many vaccines available that work very well, but

00:08:41: for certain vaccines it can really make a difference.

00:08:44: Okay, so these two technologies together are forming your idea or

00:08:48: your spin-off, but how far along are you in the development

00:08:52: and how do you plan to bring it to the market?

00:08:55: The vaccine that we're really developing together

00:08:58: right now is against RSV virus.

00:09:00: That is mostly impacting the elderly and young children.

00:09:03: It uses MCMV as the vector, and we're developing and testing

00:09:07: the designs for the antigens that are safer and better.

00:09:11: When I say we, I have

00:09:13: to shout out my wonderful colleagues.

00:09:15: Elisa and Imre were also key team members for this project.

00:09:19: But back to your question.

00:09:21: We have spoken to the regulatory authorities, the Paul-Ehrlich-Institut,

00:09:24: to hear what they want to see before we

00:09:27: can progress our vaccine to the clinical phase

00:09:29: one, and this resulted in the following plan.

00:09:32: We will soon test our improved RSV vaccine in relevant

00:09:36: animal models with benchmarking against vaccines that are already available.

00:09:39: Most importantly, we will look at the durability of the protective

00:09:43: immune response and this way, make sure that our vaccine

00:09:46: is safer and better before going into the clinical trials

00:09:49: and to translate our academic work, we wish to spin

00:09:53: out build a biotech here in Braunschweig, called ENDURIVAC and

00:09:56: hopefully as soon as possible in the incubator on the

00:10:00: age that I campus.

00:10:01: And I'm really excited to build and direct together

00:10:05: with Henning, manage the various projects, and really complementing

00:10:08: Henning's expertise to make sure that we're bringing the

00:10:11: most safe and effective vaccines possible to the clinic.

00:10:15: Do you have any other partners in

00:10:17: the project and the plan spin off?

00:10:20: What roles do the partners have?

00:10:22: Yeah, so we we currently have a lot

00:10:25: of different partners that are that are really

00:10:28: important for the various things that we're developing.

00:10:31: I have to shout out the people that are really

00:10:36: the experts for RSV, and also for the various animal

00:10:40: models, such as the people at the Veterinary U niversity

00:10:45: in Hanover, Martin von Vader, Martin Ludlow and Guus Rimmelzwaan

00:10:49: and from the German Primate Center and Nadine    Kruger.

00:10:53: Next to that, of course, the the co-founders of of our

00:10:58: enterprise Luka Cicin-Sain, Henning's boss, and my own boss Kathrin.

00:11:03: They are really also indispensable.

00:11:05: But next to this to to build a business.

00:11:09: We also are getting some expertise in that regard from

00:11:13: somebody who has already have extensive experience in building biotechs.

00:11:18: He's Hendrik, who will support us from from next year.

00:11:22: And next to all of this, we also have a

00:11:27: really excellent board of advisors, Antonio de Maria, Dolores Noel,

00:11:31: Hartmut Henle and Carlos Guzman, also from the HZI, and

00:11:35: SLS Europe, which is also a spin-off from the HZI,

00:11:40: is supporting us in consulting specifically for the business development.

00:11:44: And they're really specialized in doing this for vaccine development.

00:11:48: So we're really supported by such a wonderful construct

00:11:52: of different people that I think will make

00:11:55: our chance the best that it can be.

00:11:58: Yeah, I think so.

00:12:00: Really, really a big team.

00:12:02: To Catherine de la Rosa.

00:12:04: I spoke in season one, episode eight.

00:12:07: Thank you for so long.

00:12:09: More questions to Henning for you.

00:12:12: When I think about the flu vaccine, for

00:12:15: example, on the one hand, immunity wanes.

00:12:18: Yeah, we we told we talked about and

00:12:21: on the other hand the virus mutates.

00:12:24: Can long lasting vaccine protection like the kind you're

00:12:28: researching help against different variants, or will it also

00:12:32: need to be adapted and boosted sooner or later?

00:12:36: And that is a very, very interesting question.

00:12:38: And I can tell you we get that on

00:12:41: every single conference by the experts as well.

00:12:43: And it's also a question that strikes me personally

00:12:46: a lot because I've worked a lot in

00:12:48: Covid 19 and previous to that with influenza.

00:12:51: And these are really two viruses that don't stop evolving.

00:12:54: And that is it's a very good question.

00:12:56: We have one data set that is very, very encouraging

00:12:59: from a long term experiment that we did in hamsters

00:13:02: with a prototype vaccine that we developed against Covid 19.

00:13:05: And this prototype vaccine that we used

00:13:08: was against the index variant of SARS-CoV-2.

00:13:10: So the very first viral variant of SARS-CoV-2 that occurred.

00:13:13: And what we did is that we performed a six month

00:13:16: follow up where we looked at the immune responses over time.

00:13:20: And in the end, we then infected the animals with SARS-CoV-2.

00:13:24: And we observed that shortly after immunization, the animals

00:13:27: did not recognize the recent Omicron variants, and Omicron

00:13:31: BA five were not recognized by the immune system.

00:13:35: And this is exactly what also happened with the mRNA vaccines

00:13:39: and the other vaccines that back then were on the market.

00:13:43: But to our big surprise, when we looked after half

00:13:47: a year, most of the animals build very powerful

00:13:51: immune responses, even against these very divergent viral variants.

00:13:54: And the reason for that is that, as I've told you

00:13:58: previously, the antigens, the training data remain in the body for

00:14:02: the whole period, and that allows our immune system to

00:14:06: build a super high quality immune response that is not

00:14:09: only stronger, it's it's broader, it has a better quality.

00:14:13: And we can really observe this over

00:14:15: time how the quality goes up.

00:14:17: And at the end these animals

00:14:20: even protect against Omicron BA five.

00:14:22: However, we also and I want to be

00:14:25: honest about that, look how far this goes.

00:14:28: And we then tested later variants such as XBB, JN.1.

00:14:31: Whatever came after that.

00:14:33: And this cross protection was not protecting against these variants anymore.

00:14:37: So it has a limit.

00:14:39: But what we clearly think is that our

00:14:42: vaccine can cope with viral evolution far better

00:14:45: than the current technologies do, but not forever.

00:14:48: And therefore at some point.

00:14:49: Yes, probably the vaccines have to be updated or combined with

00:14:53: other technologies that allow it to cope with a viral evolution.

00:14:56: So but not every year, maybe every

00:14:59: every five years or every ten years.

00:15:01: I think this is a good deal.

00:15:03: What are you learning, aside from the specific development

00:15:06: of this new vaccine technology about our immune system?

00:15:09: And, yeah, about the the longest lasting vaccine protection possible.

00:15:13: There's a lot to that.

00:15:15: And we sometimes don't even know where to start looking at.

00:15:19: And it's difficult to focus then.

00:15:22: But there is one aspect that

00:15:24: I think inspires all of us.

00:15:26: And that's the fact that if this technology works, we're

00:15:30: among the first ever to develop a technology that will

00:15:34: deliver a long lasting effector immunity in the body.

00:15:38: So a long lasting state where you have antigen specific antibodies

00:15:41: and CD8 T cells, and that is something that is

00:15:45: new and that we have followed up following on closely.

00:15:49: And when you go a little bit more into the technical

00:15:52: details, then you need of course, also to look at

00:15:56: B-cell responses and T-cell responses and how they act together.

00:16:00: CMV so the cytomegalovirus is known to

00:16:02: establish exceptionally strong CD8 T-cell responses.

00:16:04: But recently it had also been shown

00:16:07: that this is true for B-cell responses.

00:16:09: And we see that to the neutralizing antibodies.

00:16:12: So the real good antibodies that directly

00:16:15: can can bind to neutralize the virus.

00:16:17: They don't get more, but they get better over time.

00:16:21: And this is something that we're very interested in.

00:16:24: Something that intrigues me personally is how all of this

00:16:28: goes along with the biological sex differences, because it's

00:16:31: known that men and women respond differently to vaccines.

00:16:34: These differences also lie in the B- and T-cell responses, and

00:16:38: I'd be super curious to understand how this works together.

00:16:42: And I tried to to speak to to doctors and

00:16:45: to industry partners and try to convince them that they

00:16:49: should adapt the vaccine schedules for the different sexes.

00:16:52: But when it comes to implementation, they were rather smiling at

00:16:55: me, which I think is it's fair at this point, but

00:16:59: it's something that, from an academic perspective is very, very interesting.

00:17:02: And the same applies to age, because if you give

00:17:05: a long lasting vaccine to to an older adult or

00:17:08: to a small baby, that's also a very different story.

00:17:12: But back to your your spin off.

00:17:14: What steps do you still need to

00:17:17: take and what is the timeline?

00:17:19: Yes.

00:17:19: So obviously we are also running around a lot, giving pitches.

00:17:23: Speak to people who we wish to give us

00:17:27: money so that we can launch the spin off.

00:17:30: And that's that's their favorite question, of course.

00:17:33: So right now we are in the

00:17:35: so-called preclinical proof of concept phase.

00:17:38: That means we spoke to the regulatory authorities and

00:17:40: asked them, what do you want to see in

00:17:43: order to allow us to progress to human trials?

00:17:45: Because we can do a lot of research in

00:17:47: the end, if it's not what the regulatory authorities

00:17:50: want to see, it's worth not so much.

00:17:52: And and this is exactly what we're doing.

00:17:54: So as Casper also said, we are now conducting a research

00:17:58: in the so-called relevant animal models that are also considered relevant

00:18:02: by the authorities, and this will conclude next year after that.

00:18:07: So starting next year, we will go

00:18:09: into this so-called GMP process development.

00:18:11: GMP stands for good manufacturing practice.

00:18:14: That means we develop a process that allows us to produce

00:18:18: a vaccine that is aligning with all the regulatory expectations.

00:18:22: So it's super clean, very precisely described.

00:18:24: And then the state that the authorities allow

00:18:27: us to to put this into humans.

00:18:30: Once this is ready in 2029, we

00:18:33: aim to initiate the toxicological studies.

00:18:35: So that's the formal safety testing, again, in very

00:18:38: close collaboration with the regulatory authorities to show

00:18:41: that the vaccine is safe in animal models.

00:18:44: And with this data package, we will then apply for

00:18:48: the clinical trials that we aim to initiate in 2030.

00:18:52: And there we will start with a phase one clinical testing

00:18:55: that is exclusively looking at the safety of the technology.

00:18:58: We'll be the first one to put

00:19:01: the mouse herpes virus into humans.

00:19:02: So that is a critical part.

00:19:04: And if this is successful, we will then progress into phase

00:19:08: two testing where we look at the efficacy and then

00:19:11: we will understand if our vaccine really works in humans.

00:19:14: And there is a very interesting aspect here that

00:19:17: I think could be could be interesting to speak

00:19:21: about is the fact that RSV is a special

00:19:24: candidate here, this virus actually, for this virus, it's

00:19:28: possible in Europe to infect people with this pathogen.

00:19:31: So there are medical centers, for example,

00:19:34: in Belgium where you can infect humans.

00:19:37: And that for us means we can relatively early.

00:19:40: Once we know that our vaccine is safe, give

00:19:44: it to humans, and then challenge them with the

00:19:47: RSV strain in the hospital, and that will tell

00:19:50: us very shortly, within weeks if our vaccine works.

00:19:53: So we don't need the very large clinical studies to understand

00:19:57: if our vaccine works in principle, and that is very attractive

00:20:01: for investors and the most important so-called value inflection point.

00:20:05: So that's the turning point where the technology value increases so

00:20:10: dramatically that we can then team up or sell our technology.

00:20:14: This sounds really, really great and a big vision.

00:20:18: But you're you're you're on track.

00:20:21: You're on the way.

00:20:23: Vaccine development isn't the easiest topic.

00:20:25: I think think vaccine skepticism and yeah, anti-vaxxers.

00:20:29: What advantages does your new technology offer including.

00:20:32: Yeah, from societal perspective.

00:20:34: Yeah, that's a very good and very important question also

00:20:37: for our business development, of course, because besides the societal

00:20:41: skepticism against vaccines that is increasing, and especially in

00:20:44: the US, there's also a political component to that.

00:20:47: Right.

00:20:47: And the US remain the most important market for pharma research.

00:20:51: So this is something that we think about a lot.

00:20:55: I want to be very honest and say that

00:20:58: in my opinion, vaccine skepticism is a luxury problem.

00:21:01: It's a very big privilege to be skeptical about

00:21:04: vaccines, because if you think about the regions in

00:21:07: the world where these vaccines are not available are

00:21:10: just very limited, there is no skepticism about vaccines.

00:21:13: They really need it.

00:21:15: And they like to have these vaccines.

00:21:17: And this is also that with

00:21:19: ENDURIVAC, we think about a lot.

00:21:21: Of course, we wish to address vaccine skepticism, and

00:21:24: we believe that we can contribute to the reduction

00:21:27: of this by providing vaccines that you only need

00:21:30: to give once and you spare all the boosters.

00:21:33: But what we really care about is the fact

00:21:37: that our vaccine can also provide a solution for

00:21:40: regions where it is just impossible or very

00:21:42: difficult to bring different shots every year, right?

00:21:45: If you can deliver the vaccine only once to a region

00:21:49: that is very difficult to reach and give it to the

00:21:53: children, and they are then protected for 30 years, that

00:21:56: is a big societal impact and that is our focus.

00:21:59: But Henning, the topic of vaccine

00:22:01: hesitancy, let's call it like this.

00:22:03: It's certainly new for you because you work for

00:22:06: a long time as a consultant for the W.H.O.

00:22:09: on Covid 19 vaccinations, do you mind telling

00:22:12: us a little bit of your work.

00:22:14: What were your responsibilities in that?

00:22:16: Yeah.

00:22:17: So this is a position that I got roughly

00:22:20: five years ago while I was doing my first

00:22:23: postdoc at Johns Hopkins, and where I've been

00:22:26: recruited as an external technical advisor for W.H.O..

00:22:29: And my main task was to to help,

00:22:32: basically with the assessment of all the various

00:22:35: viral variants of SARS-CoV-2 that came up.

00:22:38: So once the first vaccines were released back then, the virus

00:22:42: immediately started to evolve very rapidly with the first variants and

00:22:46: then Omicron and then all the Omicron variants and the WHO

00:22:50: needed immunology experts to help just understanding what's going on, because

00:22:54: the speed was so rapid, and what my job was,

00:22:58: is to write reports on the literature that has been

00:23:01: published and to interpret these and put them into context.

00:23:05: And in the first years, that meant that every

00:23:09: evening I was writing a report summarizing all

00:23:12: the published literature on COVID vaccines to WHO?

00:23:16: I did that for roughly two

00:23:18: years and literally every single day.

00:23:21: So Christmas, birthday, wedding day.

00:23:23: That was very challenging, but also

00:23:25: something that taught me a lot.

00:23:28: And where I had the privilege to learn a

00:23:31: lot about how vaccines work, how pharma partners, policymakers

00:23:35: and society work together, and what the common concerns

00:23:39: are, and the question of comparing different technologies.

00:23:42: The mRNA technology was new to the established technologies.

00:23:46: This was always very important.

00:23:48: Everyone was very curious to understand how mRNA compares

00:23:51: to the other technologies, and something that we also

00:23:55: apply to our current research and waning immunity.

00:23:58: So short lived immunity is a big thing for Covid, RSV.

00:24:02: So.

00:24:02: And this position really helped me to to to take

00:24:06: a lot out that we can now use for ENDURIVAC.

00:24:10: But it also sensitized me about the the

00:24:13: difficult interplay of industry, politics and society.

00:24:15: But now you're not working for the W.H.O., you're on

00:24:19: your own spin off, concentrating on your own spin off.

00:24:23: Let me ask you, how do you relax from work?

00:24:26: How do you balance things out in your free time?

00:24:30: I think that's a that's a very interesting question

00:24:33: because both Caspar and I have very young

00:24:36: family, so I have two kids, two girls.

00:24:39: The youngest one is five weeks old.

00:24:41: And you can imagine that when I get

00:24:43: home after work, then, it's the family.

00:24:45: It's simply the family.

00:24:47: And this is amazing.

00:24:48: To be perfectly honest, it doesn't

00:24:50: allow me to do sports anymore.

00:24:52: I try to run once a week and that's it.

00:24:55: And maybe to go to the garden

00:24:57: for half an hour a week.

00:24:59: But this is giving me so much strength, and

00:25:02: it's also forcing me to switch off from

00:25:05: work for a couple of hours every day.

00:25:07: And this is amazing.

00:25:09: I think the combination of having this very inspiring startup

00:25:12: journey that is challenging, but also a huge privilege, who

00:25:16: can, who can do that, who can start initiating a

00:25:19: spin off and then coming home to a young family?

00:25:23: I think that's that's just perfect.

00:25:25: There's no lack of energy.

00:25:27: Casper, what about you?

00:25:28: What what do you do when you're not researching?

00:25:32: Yeah, as Henning just said, I have a

00:25:35: young, young boy at home, almost six months

00:25:38: old, and he's really a wonder of life.

00:25:41: And it's really.

00:25:42: I love to spend time with him next to that.

00:25:46: I do like to ride my bike now.

00:25:49: It's mostly just going to work, whether

00:25:52: it is raining or it is snowing.

00:25:55: I always want to bike to work and

00:25:58: once a week I sing in a choir.

00:26:00: To make music together is something that I deeply love, and

00:26:05: I deeply need to distract a bit from from the work

00:26:09: that is that is going on every day, maybe as a

00:26:13: take-home message, or what is your long term vision and what

00:26:17: would you like to achieve, perhaps from a societal perspective?

00:26:21: Yeah, this is of course, the question that drives us,

00:26:23: and that really puts us to work every single day.

00:26:26: And all four founders.

00:26:27: We are all parents, and we all have experienced

00:26:30: how it is to go to the doctor a

00:26:33: lot to get all the different vaccine shots.

00:26:35: And again, I'm not complaining.

00:26:36: This is a privilege, but our big vision

00:26:39: is that we can combine all of this.

00:26:41: We have not spoken about it today because

00:26:44: it's very technical, but also allows to combine

00:26:46: a lot of different vaccines into one.

00:26:49: So our vision for, let's say, maybe 15 years is

00:26:52: that we have one vaccine that combines a lot of

00:26:55: different vaccines, and you only need to give it once.

00:26:59: So when you have your kid, it's old enough.

00:27:02: You go to the doctor, you

00:27:03: get one shot and that's it.

00:27:05: And again, we are speaking from

00:27:07: a luxury situation here in Germany.

00:27:09: We are addressing a luxury problem.

00:27:11: But think about the regions where the childhood

00:27:14: vaccination is really a logistical and political problem.

00:27:16: We believe that there we can change the world.

00:27:19: Big vision.

00:27:20: That's I think you're on a good way.

00:27:23: Thank you for your time.

00:27:24: Thank you very much.