Filipina scientist is first Canadian recipient of Moderna Fellowship

Dr. Gabrielle Gaulthier is the first Canadian to be awarded the Moderna fellowship. She  will do research on vaccines. The information gained from this work will be used for the optimization of COVID-19 vaccination schedules for children.(Moderna Photo)

A young Filipina scientist has won a prestigious fellowship program from Moderna to study immune responses to COVID in Canadian children, the pharmaceutical company announced.

“We’re excited to announce the first Canadian recipient of our Moderna Global Fellowship Program, from University of British Columbia,” the company said in release.

Dr. Gabrielle Gaultier was awarded a three-year fellowship for her project, which aims to quantify humoral immune responses to #COVID19 infection and vaccination in Canadian children through quantification of anti-spike #protein IgG concentration and function as well as B cell responses.

The information gained from this work will be used for the optimization of COVID-19 vaccination schedules for children as well as contribute to establishing correlates of protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection, “ says the release.

The Winnipeg born, Thunder Bay-raised Gaulthier is the only child of Lourdes Cadigal and Dennis Gaulthier, formerly of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Gaulthier completed her PhD in the Biotechnology program at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario in October 2020.

Her PhD projects investigated B-cell and antibody responses to the 13-valent pneumococcal protein-polysaccharide conjugate vaccine in adults with severe chronic kidney disease (CKD), natural immunity against Haemophilus influenzae type a and B-cell subpopulations in adults with CKD, as well as antibodies specific for Streptococcus pneumoniae in Indigenous and Non-Indigenous adults.