Researcher Embarks in Journey to Make Affordable Covid-19 Vaccines

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesian researcher Novalia Pishesha, who is currently involved in a vaccine research in the United States, seeks to produce future coronavirus (Covid-19) vaccines that can be easily produced at a low cost. She intends to pave the way for a locally-produced vaccine. 

Pishesha is the junior researcher in Harvard University’s Society of Fellows who issued a scientific journal earlier this month on protein-based Covid-19 vaccine candidates that target antigen-presenting cells directly. The journal is featured in the National Academy of Sciences’ proceedings.

She and her team are reportedly entering animal testing phase. “The candidate vaccine is 100 percent effective because from all the mice (the test subjects), data shows they are protected,” she said as reported by VoA Indonesia. 

The team, consists of Novalia, Hidde Ploegh, and Thibault J. Harmand started their lengthy research in April of 2020, which was just a month after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced the situation as a global pandemic. 

The team uses nanobody technology previously developed for the treatment of autoimmune diseases. So far, the vaccine candidate is effective against various Covid-19 variants, including the South African variant.

She also implies that the candidate vaccine is effective against the Delta variant even though she openly admits that the team has yet tested this for conclusive results. 

Prior to pursuing bioengineering, Novalia Pishesha graduated from high school in Singosari, Malang, East Java. It was always her life long goal to help people in need and those suffering illnesses, especially after a number of people in her closest circle passed away due to lupus. 

After graduating from high school, she went to study medicine in college but felt the education system in her campus did not fit her and decided to travel to the United States to study bioengineering at the San Francisco City College. She continued her pursuit of knowledge to the University of California at Berkeley under a scholarship program. 

Novalia then continued her degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2012 and obtained her PhD in bioengineering in 2018.

VOA INDONESI