Dr Robert Jordan | Senior Program Officer
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Robert Jordan is a Senior Program Officer at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Prior to joining the BMGF, Robert was Vice President of Research and Development at Meissa Vaccines developing live attenuated virus vaccines for RSV and SARS-CoV-2 as well as other respiratory virus pathogens. Robert worked at Vir Biotechnology and also at Gilead Sciences as a Director of Biology where he has contributed to the development of presatovir (GS-5806) a phase 2 clinical candidate for treatment of RSV infection and remdesivir (GS-5734), a clinical stage compound with broad antiviral activity that has been licensed for emergency use to treat SARS-CoV2 (COVID-19) infections. Prior to joining Gilead, Robert worked Viropharma Inc, and then Siga Technologies, where he co-discovered and developed Tecovirimat (ST-246), a novel, orthopoxvirus (smallpox) egress inhibitor, that was approved by the FDA in 2018 through the FDA “animal rule”. Robert received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Johns Hopkins Blumberg School of Public Health and completed postdoctoral training in virology at Harvard University. Robert has over 80 publications in peer reviewed journals, is on the editorial board of Antiviral Research, and has held adjunct faculty positions at Oregon State University and Drexel University.