CHEMSEM 12: April 15, 2021

Pfizer’s Project Lightspeed and the Chemical Design Principles for Lipids Used in Lipid Nanoparticle Technology

• Download: roger-pak-poster.pdf

The faculty, students and staff of the Andrews University Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry are pleased to invite all to view a Zoom lecture by our distinguished alumnus Roger H. Pak, PhD, on Thursday, April 15, 2021, at 4:30 p.m. EST on "Chemical Design Principles for Lipids Used in Pfizer's COVID19 Vaccine."

This is the twelfth installment of the Dwain L Ford Lecture Series in the Andrews University Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry 2021 spring seminar program. Everyone is invited to view the lecture at: https://andrews.zoom.us/j/97156680893. The meeting ID is 971 5668 0893.

Teachers are encouraged to announce this lecture in their classes and/or forward this email to their classes. Please share and encourage your colleagues, friends and others to tune in online. This lecture is free and open to all: students, high school through college, and everyone in our community and general public.

The Dwain L. Ford Lecture Series is co-sponsored by the Andrews University Office of Research & Creative Scholarship, Berrien RESA Math Science Center and the Chemistry Honors Society.

Seminar Zoom Protocol:

• Mute your sound.
• Everyone can ask/write a question in the chat.

Abstract:
This presentation will provide an overview of the Pfizer-BioNTech Project Lightspeed and then delve into the intricacies of the chemical design principles that allows lipid nanoparticles to deliver RNA to cells in order to present protein antigens to the immune system. These lipid chemical design features were critical to the success of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine, BNT162b2 (Comirnaty®).

Speaker’s Bio:
Roger H. Pak, PhD, is an Associate Research Fellow at Pfizer, Inc., in the Novel Delivery Technologies group within the BioTherapeutics Pharmaceutical R&D department located in Andover, Massachusetts. He has over 20 years industrial experience working at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and, now, Pfizer. Prior to that, he was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California-Davis and he received his PhD in chemistry from UCLA. He held fellowships at the City of Hope National Cancer Institute, the University of Notre Dame and Argonne National Laboratories. Pak received his BS with honors in chemistry from Andrews University.  

At Pfizer, he leads the efforts on covalent technologies related to biotherapeutic drug delivery. He is currently the co-chair of the Pfizer Drug Delivery Council and leads Technology and Innovation projects across multiple departments including Biomedicine Design, Medicinal Chemistry, PK/ADME, Vaccines, Oncology and Immunology & Inflammation R&D. The current focus is on nanotechnologies that can be applied to Pfizer's pipeline portfolio such as lipid and polymeric nanoparticle delivery systems.