Tracey Mustoe

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Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

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Georgina Ferry interviews Tracey Mustoe, University Biological Safety Officer, 21 September 2022.

Topics discussed include (00:00:24) early interest in science, work as a research technician at Birmingham University; (00:02:10) biological safety and normal day-to-day work as Biological Safety Officer; (00:04:43) university rules around health and safety and adherence to guidance and national health and safety bodies; (00:06:38) first awareness of COVID-19; (00:09:18) remit of role as Biological safety officer in ensuring safety of university researchers, guidance relating to hazard groups; (00:13:20) work to set up a Containment Level 3 Laboratory with William James, including training course for handling samples; (00:17:44) Health and Safety Executive, including approvals for research; (00:19:45) other laboratories working on live virus samples; (00:21:47) length of time of this work, including work on challenge trial with Health and Safety Executive and Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens; (00:26:00) facilitation of research and challenges of working with researchers (00:29:31) lack of transmission of the virus in laboratory setting, owing to implementation of safety guidance; (00:31:03) overlap of work with colleagues across the university implementing safety measures, including work as part of the Safety Office; (00:33:21) collaboration with university colleagues including departmental facilities managers; (00:34:16) change in pace as of September 2022; (00:35:04) preparation, learning and improvements in systems as a result of work on COVID-19; (00:37:37) changes to working life as a result of the pandemic, including remote working, connection and collaboration with other university biological safety officers, Institute of Safety in Technology and Research, additional hours worked; (00:42:00) impact of this work on personal wellbeing, actions taken to support wellbeing; (00:43:50) return to office working, including inspection visits; (00:45:30) current levels of work, staff turnover, retraining of biological safety officers; (00:47:40) changes in attitude or approach to work, including hope for more collaborative working in laboratories.

Episode Information

Series

Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

People

Keywords

medical sciences

covid-19 (disease)

Department: Bodleian Libraries

Date Added: 30/03/2023

Duration: 00:49:41

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Professor John Bell (part three)

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Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

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Georgina Ferry interviews Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine, 21 September 2022.

Topics discussed include (00:00:20) personal impact during the pandemic, including relating to student supervision, change in the pace of work; (00:03:30) national lockdown and impact on work, meetings and calls with Lord Bethall [Lords Minister in the Department of Health], work with Matt Hancock MP, gaps in information distribution; (00:06:25) media and press appearances, including Channel 4 and ITV; (00:08:37) family life, including home working; (00:09:56) impact of the work on wellbeing, keeping to a routine including sleep and exercise; (00:13:11) progress of vaccine programme, including results from Pfizer, data from Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine results; (00:14:35) personal threat of catching COVID-19, including lifestyle changes; (00:18:20) early assumptions relating to the pandemic; (00:19:40) population level exposure to the virus, immunology, antibodies and T cell protection; (00:23:25) virus sequencing, including appearance of variants; (00:25:30) mistakes in modelling and differences of opinion amongst the scientific community; (00:28:04) differences in opinion in the scientific community relating to lockdown restrictions, worries relating to the collapse of the health system during the early stages of the pandemic; (00:29:34) manual for pandemic management, lockdown restrictions in Africa (00:34:58) calls with Chris Murray [University of Washington, Seattle] relating to modelling; (00:35:45) vaccination and protection for life from severe disease; (00:38:00) stepping back from advisory roles relating to COVID-19; (00:38:36) future pandemic preparedness, including preparedness for other viruses including Nipah; (00:41:32) new work including a systematic approach for characterising infections and identifying pathogens earlier, development with the G20; (00:43:47) One Shot campaign.

Episode Information

Series

Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

People

Keywords

medical sciences

government policy

astrazeneca (firm)

covid-19 (disease)

Department: Bodleian Libraries

Date Added: 30/03/2023

Duration: 00:46:54

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Professor Lisa White

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Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

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Georgina Ferry interviews Lisa White, Professor of Modelling in Epidemiology at the Big Data Institute, 13 September 2022.

Topics discussed include (00:00:29) early interest in health, degrees in mathematics at the University of Warwick and interest in mathematical biology, PGCE training and work as a teacher and later work abroad; (00:02:45) modelling and computational approaches to public health; (00:04:22) future planning of health services and impact on policymaking; (00:05:50) prior projects, including research relating to methods for dealing with the emergence and spread of antimalarial drug resistance; (00:13:24) collaboration with other researchers, including interdisciplinary nature of the role; (00:15:11) adoption of modelling work into practice, including malaria work; (00:16:20) problem of infectious disease on a global scale; (00:20:13) first awareness of COVID-19; (00:24:25) key elements of COVID model; (00:26:55) collaboration with others on COVID model, including Ricardo Aguas and Nathaniel Hupert; (00:30:00) CoMo Consortium [COVID-19 International Modelling Consortium]; (00:33:23) consortium members' access to their individual governments or health services; (00:34:56) non-pharmaceutical interventions included in the model; (00:37:02) evaluation of how effective the model was to the policies of various countries; (00:40:37) impact of the work on the United Kingdom, including collaboration with Oxford COVID-19 research teams; (00:44:43) age structures and proportion of the population at risk, including variation by country; (00:47:21) changes as a result of the pandemic, including issues with funding support; (00:51:37) consultancy opportunities and generation of income; (00:53:46) research leadership and opportunities for international colleagues; (00:55:26) Oxford research collaborations; (00:57:41) models relating to multiple diseases, including work with Sheetal Silal and Rima Shretta on project to simulate potential elimination of malaria from the Asia-Pacific region; (01:04:07) awareness and profile of data-driven approaches as a result of the pandemic; (01:09:26) changes as a result of the pandemic, working conditions including remote working; (01:13:01) mental wellbeing, including importance of the work in supporting wellbeing; (01:18:01) personal threat of exposure to COVID-19; (01:20:06) changes in approach to work as a result of the pandemic and hopes for the future relating to pandemic preparedness.

Episode Information

Series

Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

People

Keywords

medical sciences

covid-19 (disease)

Department: Bodleian Libraries

Date Added: 30/03/2023

Duration: 01:20:55

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Dr Max Roser

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Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

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Georgina Ferry interviews Max Roser, Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Global Development, 2 September 2022.

Topics discussed include (00:00:33) early interest in economics, including studies in philosophy and geoscience at university in Austria, PhD studies, work in Oxford; (00:03:00) influence of travel on focus on global inequality; (00:04:40) development of Our World in Data website; (00:10:47) different kinds of data collected and origin of data, including data aggregation; (00:12:25) data visualisation, including use of diagrams, graphs, charts and world maps; (00:14:07) main user base during the early days of the website, use of social media to share data; (00:19:20) use of data by policymakers; (00:21:10) framing of data, including world's largest problems and living conditions; (00:24:15) first awareness of COVID-19; (00:25:31) pivot of work towards collection of COVID-19 data by Our World in Data; (00:31:50) particular data collected and published, particularly early World Health Organisation data, work with Hannah Ritchie to transcribe data, Breck Yunits relating to website data presentation, and Daniel Gavrilov who worked on presenting exponential growth; (00:38:30) funding for the work; (00:41:08) collaborative nature of the work; (00:42:40) changes to ways of working, including remote working and onboarding new colleagues; (00:44:25) collaboration with team at the Blavatnik School of Government, work with other data aggregators; (00:50:30) work with journalists, particularly relating to collation of data; (00:52:50) presentation of data relating to vaccinations, creation of global map showing vaccination progress, collaboration with Edouard Mathieu and his work to build tools and improve data; (01:00:30) work with variants and excess deaths, including collaboration with CoVariants.org and Sondre [Ulvunde Solstad] at The Economist; (01:02:00) undercounting by media outlets of excess mortality during the pandemic (01:06:13) collaboration with colleagues at the Blavatnik School of Government; (01:08:35) aggregation of data and its use by policymakers, policy in Germany, development of Pfizer vaccine and vaccine approval and rollout; (01:13:41) the status of data as a result of the pandemic; (01:15:12) science communications and raising understanding of science in the general public; (01:16:53) the International Best Practice Advisory Group, including outputs and impact on policy; (01:19:06) current data work, including ongoing work on COVID-19 and growth of team; (01:21:07) funding for continued project work on Our World in Data; (01:22:20) work on other topics for Our World in Data, including a database on the history of war; (01:31:15) changes in approach to work as a result of the project; (01:34:17) datasets relating to pandemic risk and preparedness.

Episode Information

Series

Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

People

Keywords

Social Sciences

global development and the environment

economic development

covid-19 (disease)

Department: Bodleian Libraries

Date Added: 30/03/2023

Duration: 01:38:25

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Dr Carina Joe

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Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

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Georgina Ferry interviews Carina Joe, Senior Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Vaccine Development, 1 September 2022.

Topics discussed include (00:00:32) early interest in science and route to current role at Oxford, particularly biotechnology, Masters course at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, PhD and work on vaccines including manufacturing process; (00:07:35) the process relating to identification of pathogens and use of vaccine development and manufacturing to create a vaccine technology to generate an immune response to the pathogen; (00:20:26) work at the Jenner Institute, particularly relating to good manufacturing practice in vaccine manufacturing; (00:22:41) work on advancing manufacturing scale using rabies vaccine with Sandy Douglas, optimising of process and advancement to clinical trial; (00:26:00) first awareness of COVID-19; (00:27:19) start of work on SARS-CoV-2 GMP production of vaccine [ChAdOx1]; (00:30:08) challenge of upscaling the manufacturing process to 200 litres; (00:35:38) improvement of productivity, modification of downstream process to accommodate; (00:38:30) work with scientists at the Pall Laboratory in Portsmouth and transportation of starter cells; (00:42:22) timetable for development of the manufacturing process, including scale-up; (00:46:22) collaboration with members of the team, including Associate Professor Sandy Douglas and Dr Adam Ritchie and work schedule; (00:47:40) 200 litre scale-up using large bioreactor at Pall Lab, development of GMP protocol; (00:49:15) distribution to commercial entities to make ingredients using GMP protocol, including Oxford Biomedica, Serum Institute of India, Cobra (Biologics) and Halix (BV); (00:50:53) lab work and meetings with companies; (00:51:30) bottlenecks in the process of upscaling to 200 litres, revamp of downstream process to accommodate 1,000 plus litres; (00:56:15) use of process in the future and ChAdOx technology to manufacture different vaccines; (00:57:26) relentless nature of the work and adaptation for different vaccines; (00:58:56) vaccine equity and distribution to low and middle-income countries; (01:00:00) COVAX; (01:01:23) visits to manufacturing sites, including in France; (01:01:50) current work, including improvement in manufacturing process, particularly simplicity of design; (01:03:40) work/life balance, including current working hours and change from 2020; (01:05:30) remote working and changes lockdown brought to working life in general; (01:06:40) personal wellbeing, support of team at work, intense project workload against a tight timescale; (01:12:05) wellbeing as a result of project work; (01:12:56) changes in approach to work as a result of the project, including a change in perspective; (01:15:54) future hopes for career. Note: the following sections of audio are redacted (00:11:47) to (00:12:00) and (00:13:24) to (00:14:25).

Episode Information

Series

Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

People

Keywords

medical sciences

astrazeneca (firm)

covid-19 (disease)

Department: Bodleian Libraries

Date Added: 30/03/2023

Duration: 01:16:31

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Professor William James

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Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

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Georgina Ferry interviews William James, Professor of Virology, 18 August 2022.

Topics discussed include (00:00:22) early interest in medicine, particularly genetics, studies in Birmingham, PhD at Oxford and academic post at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology [teaching bacteriology], work with James Porterfield on viruses, research in the 1980s on HIV; (00:03:07) macrophages, including how they interact with viruses; (00:08:00) macrophage differentiation pathway; (00:10:00) work in university administration, including as departmental bursar, Pro-Vice Chancellor; (00:16:47) first awareness of COVID-19, running of containment laboratories; (00:20:38) development of containment laboratories to work on live virus for SARS-CoV-2 at Oxford, work with Rebecca Moore, training of graduate students and postdocs; (00:22:13) infectivity reduction neutralisation assay, collaboration with Alain Townsend and Gavin Screaton's groups; (00:25:10) experience of collaboration during the early months of the pandemic, including hosting groups in containment facility, forum convened by Richard Cornall and remote meetings; (00:28:00) urgent questions, particularly relating to hospital diagnostics and sample handling, and the Phase II Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine clinical trial sample testing; (00:32:10) therapy and analysis, including monoclonal antibodies, ACE2 receptor; (00:36:09) SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and immunology, including interaction with ACE2 receptor; (00:41:10) work on ACE2 by colleagues in Zhuhai, China and work on nanobodies at the Rosalind Franklin Institute, Wellcome Trust collaborative programme and Disease X; (00:43:09) work on passive immunisation prior to epidemic outbreak; (00:44:35) work on aptamers; (00:50:00) use of stem cell technology in COVID; (00:57:29) level of knowledge of coronaviruses; (00:59:11) Dunn School team; (00:59:53) authors of scientific research papers, particularly collaborations; (01:02:31) ongoing lines of research started because of the pandemic; (01:07:46) undergraduate teaching, including remote teaching via Teams; (01:11:18) return to normal within the university; (01:13:15) personal impact of COVID-19, including ability to work in the laboratory; (01:14:30) threat from COVID-19, both inside the containment lab and in public, infection with COVID-19; (01:17:30) COVID safety regime within department; (01:18:50) sense of wellbeing generated through work on COVID-19; (01:19:50) involvement with national and international bodies; (01:21:10) changes in approach to work as a result of COVID-19; (01:23:05) funding for COVID-19 research. Note: the following sections of audio are redacted (00:21:08) to (00:21:14) and (00:44:50) to (00:47:09).

Episode Information

Series

Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

People

Keywords

medical sciences

covid-19 (disease)

Department: Bodleian Libraries

Date Added: 30/03/2023

Duration: 01:23:53

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Professor Alain Townsend

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Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

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Georgina Ferry interviews Alain Townsend, Professor of Molecular Immunology, 16 August 2022.

Topics discussed include (00:00:44) early interest in medicine and St Mary's Hospital Medical School, training with Professors Stan Peart and Hugh Dudley, work with Ita Askonas and John Skehel on flu virus at the National Institute for Medical Research, interest in immunology, PhD research on T-cells, retraining as a general physician at Oxford; (00:21:51) work in the lab on flu, particularly work with students in monoclonal antibody response to flu, collaboration with Mark Howarth on development of a flu vaccine using protein neuraminidase; (00:38:30) first awareness of COVID-19, including work with George Gao; (00:46:30) lack of funding for development of vaccine technology, work with Absolute Antibody, creation of a simple test for antibodies to COVID; (00:50:00) work with Chris Hainsworth [Centre for Process Innovation] and Ian Fotheringham [Ingenza] relating to expression of vaccine in yeast, production process, funding and work with Pamela Bjorkman; (00:59:10) funding for positions within the team, funding from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations; (01:03:35) receptor-binding domain mutations; (01:06:30) funding agencies; (01:09:14) collaboration with Etienne Joly on inexpensive and easy antibody [finger prick] test; (01:18:20) therapeutic antibodies, work with Arthur Huang, new variants, regulatory set-up; (01:25:05) impact of biological safety restrictions on lab work, impact on new students; (01:28:41) lessons learned as a result of the pandemic; (01:31:42) personal threat of infection by COVID-19, social distancing, challenge studies, reduction of restrictions in mid 2020; (01:37:10) the concept of herd immunity; (01:38:48) new variants and reinfections, personal experience of COVID-19, absenteeism and economic impact; (01:40:29) behaviour of the population in pandemic situations; (01:41:45) public messaging and testing during the pandemic; (01:43:35) positives of working collaboratively, scientific friendships and working relationships; (01:44:48) views on Material Transfer Agreements and spin-offs; (01:46:35) retirement. Note: the following sections of audio are redacted (00:11:36) to (00:12:34); (00:15:53) to (00:16:02); (00:21:38) to (00:21:42); (00:35:52) to (00:36:32); (00:43:23) to (00:45:29) and (01:32:59) to (01:33:08).

Episode Information

Series

Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

People

Keywords

medical sciences

covid-19 (disease)

Department: Bodleian Libraries

Date Added: 30/03/2023

Duration: 01:46:40

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Professor John Bell (part two)

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Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

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Georgina Ferry interviews Sir John Bell, Regius Professor of Medicine, 28 April 2022.

Topics discussed include (00:00:10) emergence of the pandemic in Europe, particularly in Lombardy, Italy; (00:01:08) concerns relating to a lack of PPE in the health service, ventilators (including ventilator competition launched by U.K. Government, call with former Minister of Health in China, Chen Zhu), and testing; (00:04:21) global manufacturers for the vaccine, the Serum Institute in India, Phase II trial; (00:07:07) Operation Warp Speed and development of vaccines in America; (00:08:58) vaccine readout and result, Pfizer results, Select Committee on Science and Technology, Moderna results; (00:15:10) challenges, particularly relating to international reception and European procurement; (00:17:25) MHRA approval and vaccine rollout in the U.K., work with Government Minister Nadhim Zahawi; (00:18:42) reports of thrombosis in Europe, changes in delivery of the vaccine to different age groups; (00:22:00) embargo of vaccine in India, COVAX and vaccine supply for Africa; (00:24:09) surplus of vaccine, current use in the U.K.

Episode Information

Series

Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

People

Keywords

medical sciences

government policy

astrazeneca (firm)

covid-19 (disease)

Department: Bodleian Libraries

Date Added: 30/03/2023

Duration: 00:24:50

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Professor Aris Katzourakis

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Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

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Georgina Ferry interviews Aris Katzourakis, Professor of Evolution and Genomics, 27 January 2022.

Topics discussed include (00:00:32) AK's early interest in science, virus evolution, PhD studies, post doctoral work in Oxford and later post as a professor in this area; (00:01:48) what is a virus?; (00:04:07) the role of viruses in the evolution of their hosts; (00:04:45) methods of research; (00:06:35) why viruses are interesting in the context of evolutionary biology; (00:11:00) bats as reservoir species, transmission of viruses between species; (00:14:00) AK's first interest in COVID-19, impact on life and research owing to lockdown restrictions, trade union involvement; (00:21:00) shift in research to COVID-19, work with PhD student on measuring the impact of COVID-19 in Iran, collaboration with a team at Imperial College London on the concept of herd immunity; (00:25:10) peaks of infection waves over time and a lack of natural end to the pandemic through natural immunity; (00:27:10) variants and transmission over time; (00:29:10) emergence of other viruses over time, adaptation of viruses; (00:30:32) interactive and collaborative nature of pandemic-related research, interaction by the scientific community on social media; (00:32:47) advisory and media work during the pandemic, trade union work and contribution to 'Scientists for Labour' and Independent SAGE; (00:34:54) collaborative paper with Trish Greenhalgh on mitigation measures at universities, an open letter in the British Medical Journal 'COVID-19: An urgent call for global 'vaccines-plus' action'; (00:37:40) natural selection and evolution of the COVID-19 virus; (00:40:15) Government response to scientists and scientific advice; (00:42:55) endemicity; (00:46:46) personal response to COVID-19; (00:48:45) working hours during the pandemic; (00:50:00) the impact of the pandemic on teaching; (00:54:28) the University's response to the pandemic; (00:56:30) the impact of the pandemic on personal well-being; (00:58:10) research questions to explore in the future, including the emergence of new variants; (01:00:54) changes to approach to work as a result of the pandemic.

Episode Information

Series

Collecting COVID: Oral Histories

People

Aris Katzourakis

Keywords

covid-19 (disease)

Department: Bodleian Libraries

Date Added: 30/03/2023

Duration: 01:02:06

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Vita Oldershaw

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