As the daughter of a diplomat father and economist mother, Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi spent her youth in Italy and then moved back to their homeland, Honduras. Somewhere along the way, a love for science emerged. After earning degrees in microbiology and clinical chemistry, she headed to the United States for her doctorate in molecular immunology and experimental pathology from the University of Florida in 1995. Bottazzi found her calling in tropical infectious diseases medicine and coronavirus research. In 2022, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for developing a safe, streamlined and affordable COVID-19 vaccine that can be easily accessed by countries around the world.

Bottazzi and her science partner of 21 years and co-director of Texas Children’s Center for Vaccine Development, Dr. Peter Hotez were nominated by U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher of Houston. She said their work to develop Corbevax—dubbed “the World’s COVID-19 Vaccine”—was “an example of international cooperation and partnership to bring health, security and peace worldwide.”

They were not an overnight success. “We are honored that finally people are having an “a-ha” moment,” said Bottazzi. “The COVID-19 vaccine was developed fast to the public eye, but the science behind it wasn’t.”

By 2020 they had leveraged more than 20 years researching tropical infectious diseases and vaccines and 10 years with coronaviruses like SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome). They adopted a higher purpose philosophy - to get the vaccines to poverty-stricken countries - which ultimately led to four major collaborations. Partnering with India, she said, means that “they have made millions of doses and vaccinated more than 50 million young kids.”

The Science Behind the Doctor

Bottazzi did two postdoctoral fellowships in cellular biology - at the University of Miami in 1998 and the University of Pennsylvania in 2001. She started a master’s program in business administration at Temple University, but when mutual friends connected her and Hotez, her career path changed. He was relocating from Yale to George Washington University to launch a new department in microbiology and tropical medicine. He had come to Honduras to do research in Central America.

With her knowledge of science and the business of science, he hired her in 2001 as assistant junior professor.

His work seemed to help clarify what she had wanted all along.

“It started with our individual interests in tropical infectious diseases,” she explained. With a grant from the Gates Foundation, their team created a framework that bridges the business of science to engage communities and empower low-income families around the world. They aim to integrate diplomacy, remove barriers like intellectual property, and incentivize partnerships by practicing open science collaborations and publishing.

When they saw interest and prioritization of coronavirus research waning in 2011, they decided to adopt it. “We always chase the things no one else likes to chase, the issues that get left behind. Scientifically, it was easy and the right thing to do.”

They started to ask questions, like “What if we were to have an outbreak that follows SARS and MERS? How would we be prepared, especially in developing interventions that are appropriate in production but also deployment in low-income countries?” For countries like India, Botswana, Malaysia and Bangladesh, they also had to consider cultural needs with technology—no animal derived products, and the need to make vaccines vegan-based.

Breaking the Paradigm

Hotez and Bottazzi were recruited to Texas Medical Center, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, which “had the same goal of doing research and advances in health that would protect the next generation of children and adults—especially those that were underserved and didn’t have access to health resources regularly for the poorest populations,” Bottazzi explained.

With Hotez as dean and Bottazzi as associate dean of the newly developed National School of Tropical Medicine, they expanded their research portfolio. They identified how the drivers and social factors—like poverty, climate, conflict, deforestation, urbanization, and globalization—not only have an impact transmission, but also on the well-being of a community.

They were well-equipped, research-rich and vaccine-ready when COVID-19 hit in 2019.

“Scientifically, we were convinced it was going to be easy breezy. We already had prototype vaccines made, data that showed they were going to work using recombinant protein technology. We thought we’d get funding, partners to get the vaccines out.”

Realization came that it was not going to happen.

It seemed no decision makers were listening. Bottazzi’s team moved very fast but got stuck with policy, regulations, and laws. “Innovation was more important than something that was already tried and true,” she said.

“We were so disappointed. Billions of dollars were given to organizations that even today haven’t put out any successful product. We were behind them, saying these kinds of vaccines have been used for decades. We had something that is ready, accessible, safe for people.”

In the meantime, the virus was taking advantage, she said. “All these strains kept coming. I can promise you, if we could have had one-third of what was invested into these large corporations, we could have brought in one of these protein-based vaccines and could probably have attacked Delta and Omicron at inception.”

They ended up partnering with a group in India and banked on a technology they already knew how to make. They could produce the vaccine quickly. They had a structure, trained personnel, could keep the vaccine at low cost, make millions of doses and deploy them to resource-poor areas.

“Lesson learned: that was the break of the paradigm,” said Bottazzi. “We were the underdogs, but we didn’t end up needing a big pharmaceutical company to partner with. We actually empowered the developing country manufacturers that are always categorized as second-tier but are more than equals.”

Nobel Peace Prize Offers Hope

Bottazzi believes there can be multiple reinfections, more repercussions like long COVID that may cause disabilities and more health-risk factors ahead. Better financial models and policies are necessary, as well as better communication with the public . “They continue to work on second generation doses, which is not a simple swap, since Omicron is unpredictable,” she says.

“If we get hit by another pandemic, we are going to make the same exact mistakes.”

There has to be a strategy.

Being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize might get her team’s work recognized, but it can also reset their philosophy and hopes for broader outreach that will live long after their 15 minutes of fame, she said.

“People think we are out of the pandemic, which is not true.” She vows to keep pushing on. “There are times and situations and scenarios where you have to be cognizant of the fact that we are an unequal world,” she says. “We can bring in medicines, vaccines and diagnostics in a much more expeditious manner without impinging on equality and safety. I want to focus on that and remain optimistic.”