Empowered Patient Podcast

Mei Mei Hu, the CEO and Co-Founder of Vaxxinity, focuses on an approach to vaccines that aims to break immune tolerance to get the body to produce the antibodies to target self-antigens causing chronic conditions. Initial trials are being conducted to slow the progression or prevent the onset of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and hypercholesterolemia. Motivating this effort is the desire to democratize health and make transformative medicines available to a larger population at a lower cost.   Mei Mei explains, "Interestingly, in 1900, the average global life expectancy was 32. Today, when you hear someone died at 79, you're like, oh my gosh, what happened? We get these two bonus lifetimes now, and those three lives total for three main reasons. The first is the Green Revolution feeding us all. The second is hygienic plumbing, and the third is vaccines. But when we think of vaccines, they're usually crying babies or kids pre-COVID. What they did was able to banish the biggest diseases of our early lives." "What w