Donald Gerson

Brainstormer, Business mentor, Concerned citizen, Connector, Educator/Teacher, Engineer, Entrepreneur, Industrialist, Inventor, Scientist, World traveler

Dr. Gerson has a strong lifelong commitment to worldwide public health. He is founder and CEO of PnuVax, a private Canadian vaccine manufacturer that manufactured an Ebola therapy in response to the recent epidemic, and is developing low-cost vaccines for children in developing countries worldwide. Dr Gerson is a founder of SaudiVax and SVAX, dedicated to producing Halal vaccines and biopharmaceuticals in Saudi Arabia for the Muslim world. Dr Gerson is also a founder of Vaccject, developing a unique low-cost single use injection device designed to prevent needle-stick injuries and transmission of blood-borne diseases. He is also a Member of the Board of New-Harvest, promoting the development of Cultured meat to replace animal agriculture for Human consumption. Dr. Gerson has been in senior manufacturing and operations management positions in the vaccine and biotechnology industry since the early 1980s, and has supplied more than a billion doses of most of the kinds of vaccines used worldwide today. He has worked on developing new vaccines for Hib, pneumococcal pneumonia, meningitis and experimental vaccines for HIV, TB, Smallpox, and Malaria, and a number of other diseases; has founded several companies, and has established and operated a number of facilities for commercial vaccine and biotech products in Canada, USA, China, Korea and Saudi Arabia. Dr. Gerson received his PhD from McGill University, taught biophysics and biochemical engineering, and was a Member of the Basel Institute for Immunology. He has more than 80 publications in various areas including cell physiology, immunology, biochemical engineering, vaccine development, and biologicals manufacturing. His interests range from art to ecology.

I am determined to make enough low-cost vaccines for the world's children, and am doing so by using the best available biological and manufacturing technologies. To feed the children saved by vaccines we are innovating technologies for cellular agriculture that will be able to produce high-protein foods at lower cost and with less environmental impact than traditional animal husbandry.

Manufacturing Enough Vaccines for the World Improves Society Everywhere: Making vaccines by using the best and most sophisticated manufacturing technologies allows high quality, high volume, low cost production that will provide life saving vaccines at low costs to all children worldwide. Currently it costs too much to make vaccines, the high cost limits use in many countries, and causes high child mortality. High child mortality drives high birth rates that overstress families, agricultural, educational and social systems. Vaccines break this downward cycle. Vaccines increase child survival rates, reduce family size, increase food and educational resources available to each child, improve health and nutrition for the whole family, and improve family and social structures. High quality plentiful vaccines supplied at prices the whole world can afford will allow todays children to change their focus from survive to thrive, and their societies from subsistence to abundance.

Bioengineering, Biotechnology, Company management, Global Health, Infectious Diseases, International Development, Manufacturing, Pharmacetuicals, Public Health, Start-Ups, Vaccines