Dr. Drew Weissman is the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research and Director of the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation.  He is a Professor in the Department of Medicine and Director of Vaccine Research in the Infectious Diseases Division at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Weissman, M.D., Ph.D., is a physician- scientist and pioneer in the science of immunology, with major contributions to the field. Notably, Dr. Weissman, and his colleagues discovered a novel nucleoside-modified mRNA platform that bypasses adverse immunologic response. The result of decades-long dedication and research, this platform now serves as the basis for the burgeoning research of targeted therapeutics for some of the world’s most devastating diseases. This research outcome paved the way for the first mRNA vaccines, being the critical backbone to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. Dr. Weissman and his lab team continue to conduct basic science research to understand and develop new nucleoside-modified mRNA platforms to advance effective and safe vaccines for different types of diseases, as well as new therapeutics.

Dr. Weissman is the recipient of multiple accolades in medicine and research, including the Lasker-DeBakey Award, the Breakthrough Prize, The Horwitz Prize and the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize.