For over 50 years, McMaster University has been at the forefront of vaccinology, making groundbreaking contributions that have shaped the field. From pioneering critical research tools to leading innovation in next-generation inhaled vaccines, McMaster’s impact on global health is profound and far-reaching.

In celebration of World Immunization Week, McMaster is proud to highlight our storied legacy in vaccine research, development, and innovation. As part of this celebration, the university is hosting The Future of Vaccinology Symposium on April 22-23, 2025, bringing together leading experts from around the world to discuss the latest advancements and future directions in vaccinology.

A legacy of innovation and excellence 

In the early 1970s, McMaster researcher Frank Graham developed a type of human cell to safely grow viruses in laboratories, a game-changing innovation that is still widely used today for research and biotechnology.

In addition to creating a reliable and efficient way to test new vaccines, Graham’s HEK 293 cell work played a crucial role decades later in the rapid development of the first COVID-19 vaccines, underscoring its enduring impact on global health.

“I take great satisfaction from the fact that the HEK 293 cell line that I created in 1973 has contributed significantly to advances in the fields of gene therapy and development of vaccines,” says Graham.

“HEK 293 cells have become one of the most commonly used mammalian cell lines both in academic research and in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.”

In the 1990s, Graham and McMaster biology professor Ludvik Prevec engineered an innovative rabies vaccine that is packaged into bait pellets and used to protect wildlife across Canada and the United States.

Graham and Prevec’s life-saving innovation is a perfect example of the ingenuity — both practical and creative — that thrives at McMaster.

Leading the charge in tuberculosis vaccination 

McMaster’s contributions to vaccinology continued into the early 2000s, with the development of a groundbreaking tuberculosis booster by professors Zhou Xing and Fiona Smaill.

Human trials showed that McMaster’s innovation could effectively “reactivate” the immune defence that tends to fade over time after initial vaccination, providing a much-needed boost in the fight against tuberculosis.

“Through our TB vaccine program, we established a robust bench-to-human translational vaccine pipeline here at McMaster,” Xing says.

That pipeline would prove invaluable in the years to come.

“This allowed us to pivot and face the new challenge presented by COVID-19.”

Xing and Smaill continued to study tuberculosis vaccines in the years that followed, developing a new candidate that would be administered via inhalation instead of injection.

Unbeknownst to them, the new inhaled vaccine platform would position McMaster at the frontlines of the response to one of the greatest health emergencies of the past century.

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic 

The 1990s also marked the start of McMaster researcher Karen Mossman’s work on virus-host responses. Mossman and her team’s work, along with their access to a Level 3 containment facility, positioned them to make a major scientific contribution two decades later — when our world as we knew it would change.

In 2019, clusters of people began experiencing a pneumonia-like illness that would not respond to standard treatments. After a month of investigation, public health authorities identified the mysterious pathogen to be a novel coronavirus, which caused a disease that would come to be known as COVID-19.

Led by Mossman, McMaster researchers played a key role on the small team that successfully isolated and grew copies of the virus responsible for COVID-19 from Toronto patients, creating a source of the virus for Canadian colleagues for study as the world raced to develop vaccines and treatments.

“This is the reason we have the Institute for Infectious Disease Research and the David Braley Centre for Antibiotic Discovery,” says Mossman.

“This whole infrastructure has been built to respond to crises and outbreaks like COVID-19. This is where we can drive research forward.”

Meanwhile, Xing and Smaill quickly pivoted their inhaled tuberculosis vaccine platform to develop an inhaled aerosol COVID-19 vaccine.

This innovative approach, targeting the lungs and upper airways, where the virus first enters the body, has proven to be more effective at inducing protective immune responses than traditional needle-based vaccines.

“What we discovered from many years’ research is that the vaccine delivered into the lung induces all-around protective respiratory mucosal immunity, a property that the injected vaccine is lacking,” Xing says.

By May 2020, less than two months after the pandemic declaration, the McMaster research team had secured millions in funding to develop this groundbreaking vaccine.

Their swift and effective response showcased the university’s agility and expertise in addressing global health crises.

“If we can show the new inhaled vaccine is safe and effective, the impact would be significant for human health and improve quality of life,” says Smaill, who is currently conducting a multi-centre trial to evaluate the new vaccine in a broad study group.

A commitment to health equity 

These milestones dot McMaster’s vaccinology timeline, but are only a small sampling of the full story.

McMaster experts are also exploring universal influenza vaccines; advancing immunization strategies; developing biotechnologies that may soon lead to new vaccines for cancer; and creating technologies to better stabilize vaccines.

McMaster is also actively advancing health equity in vaccine science, working to ensure vaccine research and development benefit those who need it the most. Researchers are addressing gaps in knowledge about the vaccination of vulnerable populations and training learners from equity-deserving groups in vaccinology.

“In the wake of COVID-19, the value of academic institutions has been questioned and there has been a growing trend towards distrust in experts overall; but I think if we’re more community-facing, it will create more trust,” says Matthew Miller, a co-lead of the inhaled COVID-19 vaccine project and executive director of McMaster’s Global Nexus.

“Those people who are distrusting don’t see themselves as part of the academic community. So, we need to make the academy into a resource that benefits those beyond our students, staff, and faculty.”