Keith Chappell | Senior Research Fellow
The University of Queensland

A/Prof Keith Chappell is a Molecular Virologist whose research is focused on structure-based design of vaccines for medically important viruses. Keith is a group leader within the University of Queensland as well as lead scientific advisor to Vicebio Ltd. Keith is one of the inventors of the broadly applicable vaccine platform, molecular clamp. Molecular clamp locks viral glycoproteins into the native prefusion conformation to elicit highly protective immunity and enables consistent manufacture of highly stable, ready-to-use, fully liquid vaccines. In 2020, Keith led the University of Queensland’s effort to produce a covid vaccine, which progressed from sequence information to clinical trial dosing within 6 months. While this initial vaccine did not progress due to interference with some existing HIV diagnostic tests, a new covid vaccine incorporating a second-generation molecular clamp is currently undergoing clinical testing. Vicebio is also actively advancing this technology for the development of multivalent vaccine formulations to target life-threatening respiratory viruses.