Geoffrey Hutchinson

Hutchinson graduated from Ball State University with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry in 2014. He then joined the Peace Corps, serving in Mozambique until 2016. His experiences abroad spurred his passion for studying infectious diseases, immunity, and vaccine development. In 2017, he joined the Viral Pathogenesis Lab, led by Dr. Barney Graham at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institutes of Health as a postbaccalaureate fellow. There, his research focused on the structure-based design of vaccines against endemic viruses as well as those with pandemic potential including RSV, Influenza, and Coronaviruses. As a member of the Coronavirus Vaccines and Immunopathogenesis group as well as the Molecular Immunoengineering Unit, Hutchinson’s work focused on the use of structure-based design and display of viral antigens for use as vaccine immunogens. This work was particularly focused on universal and multi-pathogen vaccines, as well as pandemic preparedness. Hutchinson played a key role in the NIH's COVID-19 outbreak response towards the development of COVID vaccine, mRNA-1273 in collaboration with Moderna, as well as other vaccine strategies. He contributed to the design, characterization, and preclinical studies of the prefusion-stabilized SARS-CoV-2 spike as well as the development of related reagents and assays crucial to vaccine and therapeutic mAb development. Currently a rising 5th-year PhD candidate at the University of Washington in the Department of Immunology and the Institute for Protein Design, Hutchinson continues to study immuno-engineering for vaccine development.