Philip Felgner, PhD, Receives the Better World Award

The UCI Academic Senate has named Philip Felgner, PhD, professor in residence in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the School of Medicine, and pioneer in the development of lifesaving mRNA vaccines, as this year’s recipient for the Academic Senate Better World Award.

The Academic Senate confers this award on a faculty member whose professional contributions have positively impacted the world community in an extraordinary manner. It is among the most prestigious awards University of California faculty members can receive from their colleagues.

In 2022, Dr. Felgner was one of two UCI researchers who were named fellows by the National Academy of Inventors. He directs UCI’s Vaccine Research and Development Center.

With nearly four decades of experience in researching vaccines, gene therapies, drug delivery and epidemiology, Dr. Felgner published 230 papers that have been cited 46,000 times. He holds 53 issued U.S. patents and 56 foreign patents; 14 total have been licensed. He pioneered a technology used in developing messenger RNA vaccines to help prevent a range of diseases, including COVID-19 and HIV. The approach may also be applicable to treating cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and genetic disorders such as sickle cell disease. He won the 2022 Robert Koch Prize and Spain’s Princess of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research for his contributions to the creation of mRNA vaccines.

Dr. Felgner will be recognized at the 2024 Academic Senate Distinguished Faculty Awards Event, which is scheduled to take place in Winter 2024. The event will feature a lecture by the recipient of the Distinguished Senior Faculty Award for Research and a presentation of the 2023-24 Distinguished Faculty Awards, followed by a reception.