Speaking to The Lancet Infectious Diseases from Geneva, where she is on her first overseas trip since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, virologist Kanta Subbarao reflects that “the world has learnt a lot in the past two years from the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the remarkable advances in vaccine technology and the need to look long and hard at our influenza pandemic preparedness plans. We must also address some uncomfortable truths, such as vaccine access inequity”. Today, Subbarao is the director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza, based at the Doherty Institute in Melbourne, Australia. There, she oversees global influenza surveillance and helps select the different strains of influenza virus to include in the annual vaccines. This involves synthesis of data on antigenic and genetic characterisation of influenza strains causing serious morbidity around the world and working with computer modellers to determine if this justifies updating the viruses in the next season's vaccine. She is also chairing a new group of 18 global experts to determine when, whether, and how to update COVID-19 vaccines as new variants emerge. “When COVID arrived, with my background in virology I wanted to do what I could”, she explains. Her team fortunately has access to a level 3 biosafety laboratory, allowing them to carry out such research as developing neutralising antibody assays for SARS-CoV-2, and updating them to discover the effects of new variants and booster vaccinations. Born in the USA to Indian parents, Subbarao moved to India aged just 5 years where her father was a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur. She would later complete her medical degree at the Christian Medical College in Vellore, and head to St Louis, MO, USA to do further training, completing a 3-year paediatrics internship and residency at the Cardinal Glennon Memorial Hospital for Children. This would be the start of three decades living in the USA that would see her work at both the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC; 1997–2002), and the National institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH (NIAID; 1990–95 and 2002–16). Having studied respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in Cleveland, Ohio, Subbarao was at first reluctant to switch focus to influenza when offered her first NIAID position in 1990. “I soon changed my mind, fascinated by the all the genetic manipulations that were possible with this virus”, she explains. One of her first major achievements at NIAID was identifying one of the key host range determinants of human influenza. Then, at CDC, when the first H5N1 influenza infection occurred in a child from Hong Kong, her lab characterised the virus. On her return to NIAID in 2002, Subbarao started a new lab focused on development of vaccines for influenza viruses with pandemic potential, focusing on avian influenza and using live attenuated virus as the backbone to make vaccine candidates, taking them from initial characterisation through to phase 1 clinical trials. “All these clades were chosen because all had caused infection in humans, and were prioritised in the order of number of infections”, she explains. She now participates in WHO recommendations to generate and maintain a library of vaccine viruses that stand ready to be used in the event of a pandemic being declared. Subbarao also worked extensively on the first SARS pandemic from 2003 to 2005, creating animal models, proving that neutralising antibodies were a correlate of protection, and testing vaccines and immune therapeutics. In Melbourne, Subbarao is working to improve the effectiveness of current influenza vaccines and to understand the mechanisms behind the genetic reassortment in influenza virus evolution. She is also collaborating with stem cell researchers to better understand the impact of SARS-CoV-2 on different tissues. She also has a special interest in building infrastructure to recognise viruses crossing the species barrier from animals to humans. “There are so many viruses in the animal kingdom that it is impossible to predict which specific virus could cause a pandemic, so we could focus on viruses that have already made the jump”, she explains. “One approach would be to conduct surveillance in poultry or swine industry workers. However, this can only be achieved through collaboration with these industries due to commercial considerations and sensitivities.” Subbarao hopes that the incredible progress made in vaccine technology for COVID-19, such as mRNA vaccines, can be transferred to influenza and other viral infections, and indeed much research is ongoing in this area. Using mRNA vaccines to fight influenza could enable vaccines to more closely match circulating influenza clades, since the manufacturing process is much shorter. She says: “When the next pandemic arrives, whether it is influenza or another coronavirus, we hope to be much better prepared.” “Kanta is one of a very few scientists with a broad knowledge of cell biology and molecular virology, combined with a real-world perspective on responses to emerging respiratory pathogens”, says Wendy Barclay, Action medical research chair in virology at Imperial College London, UK. “Her work on influenza host range is inspiring, all the way from her early identification of the key mutation in the virus polymerase that allows host switching of avian influenza in mammals, to her elucidation of the role of the soft palate in selecting for receptor adaptation. She is an invaluable contributor to the pandemic influenza response, a fantastic supporter of junior scientists, and a superb role model.”