Dr. Tony Cunningham is an infectious diseases physician, clinical virologist, and scientist renowned for his groundbreaking research on HIV and herpesviruses (HSV). He is also the Director of the Australian Centre for HIV and Hepatitis Virology Research (ACH2). Tony has a special interest in vaccines and his work spans vaccine and microbicide development, with a focus on preventing HIV transmission and advancing treatments for herpesviruses.

In this episode, I learn about the herpesvirus and its interaction with HIV. We have an amazing conversation on COVID and vaccination given Tony’s interest in vaccines and his role in combating COVID in Australia. He tells me all about reasons for vaccine hesitancy, and we even talk about long covid and the role of AI in future vaccine development. It's hard to pick a favorite section, but I loved our discussion on different reasons for vaccine hesitancy.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) Episode Introduction

(00:01:35) Herpes simplex virus (type 1 and type 2)

(00:11:51) HIV and HSV

(00:14:54) Shingles and the SHINGRIX vaccine

(00:20:58) Covid Vaccine: roll-out, Johnson&Johnson and AstraZeneca

(00:26:27) Hesitancy: m-RNA vaccines

(00:29:01) Hesitancy: developed too quickly?

(00:33:52) Hesitancy: side effects

(00:38:30) Hesitancy: lack of trust in the government

(00:41:56) Covid booster

(00:44:03) Combating misinformation

(00:48:26) Long covid

(00:53:53) Vaccine price in the USA

(00:58:42) Melanoma (skin cancer) vaccine

(01:03:45) AI in vaccine development

(01:08:04) Outro

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