News, articles, and media involving members of the McLellan Lab
December 16, 2024
The lab is excited to welcome new members joining in Spring 2025: Graduate Students Meiqiao Wang, Emma Ryan, and Yuna Shin & Undergraduate Research Assistants Connor Mullins, Anna Tumanova, and Katelyn Daniel.
Nov 21, 2024
Congratulations to Christy Hjorth for defending her PhD dissertation!
Nov 13, 2024
Nasim Abdi wins 2nd place in the poster contest for her presentation entitled “Structure-based and computationally driven vaccine design for the nipah virus fusion glycoprotein" at the international conference, Pandemic Preparedness: Achievements, Current Challenges, and New Frontiers in Trieste, Italy!
Aug 19, 2024
Congratulations to Madeline Sponholz for defending her doctoral dissertation!
July 24, 2024
Ajit Ramamohan is featured in the 2024 edition of The Texas Scientist, where he discusses Applying AI in the Quest for New Vaccines.
June 27, 2024
Emily Rundlet is named a 2024 Fellow of the Jane Coffin Childs Fund for Medical Research!
April 25, 2024
Jason accepts the 2024 IVI-SK Bioscience Park MahnHoon Award along with Prof. Jan Holmgren and Prof. Barney Graham from the International Vaccine Institute and SK bioscience.
April 4, 2024
Jason leads a talk about vaccine development at the UT Health Transformation Institute's Senior Scientist Seminar Series.
Elizabeth McFadden presents her 4th-year talk, Structural Characterization of Pre-fusion Stabilized Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Glycoprotein Comlex, during the ILS Seminar Series.
Mar 13, 2024
Jason accepts the Building the Foundation Award from Research!America at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.
Mar 11, 2024
Jason joins a live special recording at UT Austin of “This Week in Virology,” discussing the research that supported the development of the RSV and COVID vaccines.
Mar 7, 2024
Ling Zhou gives her 4th-Year Talk, Structure-based design of SARS-CoV-2 spike S2 immunogens, at the ILS Spring Seminar.
Feb 20, 2024
Nasim Abdi successfully passed her Qualifying Exam and is eligible for doctoral candidacy!
Feb 19, 2024
Ling Zhou presents at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Duke Center for HIV Structural Biology Journal Club meeting. Madeline Sponholz presents at the Molecular Biosciences Department’s BioTacos series.
Feb 6, 2024
Nicole Johnson successfully defended her PhD thesis!
Jan 16, 2024
Graduate students, J.R. Kim and Chayan Ali, join the lab. Welcome to the team!
Oct 12, 2023
Jason is named a 2024 Advocacy Award Honoree by Research!America and will receive the Building the Foundation Award recognizing individuals whose basic research discoveries have played a pivotal role in advancing public health.
Oct 01, 2023
Dr. Emily Rundlet has joined the lab as a postdoctoral scholar!
Sep 22, 2023
Christy Hjorth presented her talk, Characterization of Viral Glycoprotein GP38-Directed Antibodies Elicited from Natural Infection with CCHFV, at the 3rd International Conference of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Sep 21, 2023
Jason is quoted in an article in The Atlantic about the discoveries that paved the way for the FDA-approved RSV vaccines: www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2023/09/tripledemic-virus-rsv-vaccine/675417/
Aug 23, 2023
KUT 90.5 interviews Jason about the first RSV vaccine approved for pregnant women: www.kut.org/health/2023-08-23/rsv-vaccine-for-pregnant-women-could-change-the-game-for-a-common-illness-ut-austin-scientist-says
Jul 25, 2023
Congratulations to Jory Goldsmith on successfully defending his PhD thesis!
Jun 1, 2023
Nasim Abdi, Graduate Student, joined the lab!
Mar 31, 2023
Jason’s role in the development of RSV vaccines highlighted in an article in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41573-023-00085-x
May 4, 2023
Jason, the 2021 Youngner Awardee, presented "Structure-based Vaccine Antigen Design" at the University of Pittsburgh's Julius Youngner Symposium
May 3, 2023
The FDA approved the first RSV vaccine enabled by the work of the McLellan Lab and its collaborators: cns.utexas.edu/news/features/fda-approved-rsv-vaccine-enabled-work-ut-molecular-biologist
Apr 7, 2023
Jason received the Inaugural President’s Research Impact Award to recognize research impact at UT Austin
Jan 23, 2023
Dec 15, 2022
Jason and Barney Graham quoted in a Nature article on RSV vaccine development: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04434-5
Nov 4, 2022
Scott Rush successfully defended his PhD thesis!
Nov 1, 2022
Jason quoted in AP News article on maternal RSV vaccine results from Pfizer: https://apnews.com/article/science-health-business-covid-ec1dae2bd47d604712fc2a4a842591a8
Oct 10, 2022
Jason and Barney Graham featured in an article about RSV vaccine development in The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/10/10/rsv-vaccine/
Oct 7, 2022
Dr. Gretel Torres, Postdoctoral Scholar, joined the lab!
Sep 12, 2022
Dr. Deepthi Joseph, Postdoctoral Scholar, and Dr. Luqiang Guo,Postdoctoral Scholar, joined the lab!
Jun 1, 2022
Jason selected as a National Finalist for the 2022 Blavatnik National Awards for Young Scientists
May 16, 2022
GAVI article featuring Jason, titled “Taming the spike: How Jason McLellan helped turn the tide of the pandemic” https://www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/taming-spike-how-jason-mclellan-helped-turn-tide-pandemic
May 2, 2022
Jason awarded the inaugural McGuire Family Prize for Societal Impact at Dartmouth https://geiselmed.dartmouth.edu/news/2022/jason-mclellan-to-receive-inaugural-mcguire-prize/
Apr 29, 2022
Ryan McCool received an honorable mention for an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!
Apr 4, 2022
Jason contributed to an article about COVID-19 vaccines in the April issue of Pathways https://www.scholastic.com/pathways/index.html
Mar 28, 2022
Akaash Mishra successfully defended his PhD thesis!
Mar 23, 2022
Vaxxas Licenses HexaPro Spike Glycoprotein from University of Texas at Austin for Use on its Needle-Free Vaccine Patches: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220323005337/en/Vaxxas-Licenses-HexaPro-Spike-Glycoprotein-from-University-of-Texas-at-Austin-for-Use-on-its-Needle-Free-Vaccine-Patches
Jan 15, 2022
Jason featured in a New York Times article about structure-based vaccine design, titled “Halting Progress and Happy Accidents: How mRNA Vaccines Were Made” https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/health/mrna-vaccine.html?smid=tw-share
Dec 29, 2021
Article in JAMA describing RSV vaccines and Jason’s contribution: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2787757
Dec 10, 2021
Nature news article featuring Jason’s contribution to RSV vaccines, titled “The race to make vaccines for a dangerous respiratory virus” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03704-y
Dec 9, 2021
Jason awarded the 2022 Edith and Peter O'Donnell Award in Medicine from TAMEST (The Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas) https://tamest.org/odonnell-awards/2022
Nov 10, 2021
Jason featured in a Nature career article about vaccine design, titled “A guide on how to work in vaccine science” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03056-7
Oct 26, 2021
Two books out today describing the development of COVID-19 vaccines and the role the McLellan lab played. 1) A Shot to Save the World by Gregory Zuckerman 2) The First Shots by Brendan Borrell
Sep 23, 2021
Jason awarded the Shirley Bird Perry Longhorn Citizenship Award https://straussinstitute.moody.utexas.edu/community/shirley-bird-perry-longhorn-citizenship-award
Jun 22, 2021
Jason named Texas Inventor of the Year https://cns.utexas.edu/news/jason-mclellan-named-2021-texas-inventor-of-the-year
Apr 5, 2021
New York Times article describing the McLellan lab’s 2nd-gen stabilized SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, HexaPro, and its use in vaccines for low-and-middle income countries: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/health/hexapro-mclellan-vaccine.html
Mar 22, 2021
Jason promoted to Full Professor!
Mar 4, 2021
Jason, Daniel and Nianshuang are featured in the March/April issue of the Texas Exes Alcade newsletter: https://alcalde.texasexes.org/2021/03/how-ut-research-led-to-the-development-of-the-covid-19-vaccine-in-record-breaking-time/
Jan 31, 2021
Jason joins This Week in Virology podcast to discuss the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein: https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-714/
Jan 26, 2021
Jason and his colleagues Barney Graham and Kizzmekia Corbett are featured in a USA Today article on development of the COVID-19 vaccines: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2021/01/26/moderna-covid-vaccine-science-fast/6555783002/
Dec 31, 2020
Jason and colleagues are featured in a National Geographic article on structure-based vaccine design and development of the COVID-19 vaccines: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/these-scientists-spent-twelve-years-solving-puzzle-yielded-coronavirus-vaccines
Dec 28, 2020
Jason featured in an article by Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-plague-year
Dec 20, 2020
Jason, Nianshuang and colleagues featured in an episode of This American Life podcast: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/727/boulder-v-hill/act-two-13
Dec 8, 2020
The McLellan Lab stars in an episode of PBS’ It’s OK to Be Smart entitled ‘Making the COVID-19 Vaccine’, with Dr. Joe Hanson: https://youtu.be/-92HQA0GcI8
Dec 6, 2020
Jason and colleagues featured in an article by Carolyn Johnson in The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/12/06/covid-vaccine-messenger-rna/
Dec 6, 2020
Jason and colleagues featured in an article in The New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/14/countdown-to-a-coronavirus-vaccine
Dec 1, 2020
Jason and Daniel receive a 2020 Golden Goose Award from AAAS: https://www.goldengooseaward.org/01awardees/winter
Nov 16, 2020
Daniel Wrapp successfully defended his PhD thesis!
Sep 29, 2020
Jason and colleagues featured in a C&EN article entitled “The tiny tweak behind COVID-19 vaccines” https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/vaccines/tiny-tweak-behind-COVID-19/98/i38
May 15, 2020
Our efforts to determine the SARS-CoV-2 spike structure featured in a Nature News Feature article: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01444-z
May 13, 2020
Jason and colleagues featured in a Wired article entitled “The First Shot: Inside the Covid Vaccine Fast Track” https://www.wired.com/story/moderna-covid-19-vaccine-trials/
May 6, 2020
Our work on a camelid antibody that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 is featured in a New York Times article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/06/science/llama-coronavirus-antibodies.html?smid=tw-share
Apr 17, 2020
News article in Nature Methods entitled “Coronavirus jolts labs to warp speed” featuring quotes from Daniel: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-020-0827-7
Mar 3, 2020
Our work to determine the SARS-CoV-2 spike structure is highlighted in the NIH Director’s Blog by Dr. Francis Collins: https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/03/03/structural-biology-points-way-to-coronavirus-vaccine/