University of Chicago Press to publish 'essential primer' on Covid-19 vaccine

The University of Chicago Press will publish How to Make a Vaccine: An Essential Guide for Covid-19 and Beyond by John Rhodes, a UK-based international expert in immunology and vaccine discovery. 

Senior editor Joseph Calamia acquired the title, which will be published in March 2021 with a dynamic publicity campaign and "extensive outreach" to high-profile print and digital media as well as radio, TV and podcasts. 

Rhodes has held research fellowships at the US National Institutes of Health and the University of Cambridge, and from 2001 to 2007 he was director of strategy in immunology at GlaxoSmithKline. He has first hand experience in developing vaccines.

In How to Make a Vaccine he will use "everyday language"  to offer an "authoritative, up-to-the-minute primer on how scientists discover, test, and distribute vaccines". Rhodes will also discuss how discoveries in the fight against Covid-19, such as the recent breakthrough in the development of nucleic acid vaccines, never before used in humans, will empower scientists to combat future threats to global health.

Calamia commented: "Rhodes’s experiences in the academy and industry allow him to cut through the bunk to show recent vaccine developments as both completely predictable and genuinely exciting. It will be great to have this book just as we are rolling up our sleeves."

Sarah Gilbert, from the University of Oxford and a lead scientist on AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine development, has endorsed the book, she said: "This concise book is wide ranging in the topics covered, from the history of immunology and vaccinology to the early development of multiple Covid-19 vaccines. It explains many of the areas of vaccine development that are rarely discussed, leaving the public wondering what takes so long, and reminds us that vaccines are a wise investment for both our own health and that of the economy."

Rhodes is the author of The End of Plagues: The Global Battle against Infectious Disease (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).