CERN Accelerating science

“Major advances, even in a crisis, are made in the years and decades before the crisis (...) these are not miracles that happen by chance.”  - Jeremy Farrar

We have all felt the impact of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 - but we have not felt it equally. In this episode, the last of this series, host Bruno Giussani dives into the ecosystems around scientific innovation, looking at the way different forms of collaboration, legal frameworks, and the respective roles of public institutions, private companies and philanthropy in enabling (or not) technological advances. Joining Bruno are the director of the Wellcome Trust, Jeremy Farrar, reflecting on the role of philanthropic organisations as well as the necessity of long-term investment in science, discovery and education; Soumya Swaminathan, chief scientist at the WHO, talking about the role the WHO plays on the international stage and the struggles for equity in treatment - and the WHO’s first mRNA technology transfer hub in Africa; Els Torreele, biomedical scientist and researcher in equitable public health policy, diving deep into the effects of patent-driven and commercially-funded medical research; and Ben Perry, medicinal chemist involved in drug discovery, commenting on the complexities of molecule control.