Who Is Sarah Gilbert And What Did She Say About COVID?

Sarah Gilbert is a British vaccinologist who is Said Professor of Vaccinology at the University of Oxford and co-founder of Vaccitech. She was born in April 1962, in Kettering, Northamptonshire, UK.

Sarah attended Kettering High School for Girls, where she realised that she wanted to work in medicine. She obtained nine O-Levels with six A grades. She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in biological sciences from the University of East Anglia (UEA) in 1983.

Gilbert delivered an update in September 2020 that the vaccine, AZD1222, was being produced by AstraZeneca while phase III trials were ongoing. Because of her vaccine research, Gilbert featured on The times’ Science Power List in May 2020.

What Did She Say About COVID?

Delivering the 44th Richard Dimbleby Lecture, Sarah Gilbert mentioned that there needed to be more funding for pandemic preparedness to prevent the advances made from being lost.

She also warned vaccines could be less effective against the Omicron variant. Sarah added that people should be cautious until more was known about the new variant.