Using his PhD for Vaccine Safety - Nick Francella '06

Class of 2006, bio major; PhD in microbiology (Univ. of Pennsylvania, 2013)

Hometown

Brussels, Belgium

"I like working in the pharma industry because despite an controversy or shortcomings, pharma companies are the organizations that are the most effective at transforming drugs and vaccines from ideas into reality."

Nick Francella '06 completed his PhD in microbiology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. He moved to Belgium in 2017 to work in the vaccine industry as a medical writer, responsible for synthesizing scientific data into practical information about the use of vaccines. When COVID hit in 2020, he joined the fight with Janssen Pharmaceutical Company (of Johnson & Johnson) to prep the call center for all the questions they would receive about the vaccine.

Now he trains their internal team on the diseases that Janssen's investigational vaccines target and on the data they've seen during clinical trials, as well as crafting scientifically balanced, factually accurate communications on those investigational vaccines. The work is organized regionally and includes Europe, the Middle East and Africa.