While growing up in Honduras’s capital city, Tegucigalpa, Maria Elena Bottazzi traveled for 13 hours on weekends to visit her family’s cattle ranch. She witnessed firsthand how difficult it was for people in remote villages to access health services.
“That’s why I wanted to work in microbiology, to develop technologies appropriate for remote, resource-poor settings that could serve people who have to make such a hard journey,” said Bottazzi, who was born in Italy while her Honduran father was in the diplomatic service.
An internationally recognized vaccinologist, she focuses on neglected tropical diseases as well as on emerging diseases. As codirectors of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development at Baylor College of Medicine, Bottazzi and her longtime science partner, Peter Hotez, developed the Corbevax vaccine, dubbed “the world’s COVID-19 vaccine” because it is inexpensive, patent-free, and can be produced at much larger scale. Bottazzi and Hotez were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for “a contribution that is of the greatest benefit to humankind.”
The author or coauthor of more than 150 scientific papers, Bottazzi has been recognized with awards and honors from around the world, including the Orden Gran Cruz Placa de Oro bestowed by the National Congress of Honduras.
“I hope that if any lessons come of this disaster,” she said of the COVID-19 pandemic, “it’s that we see more and more of breaking down of these issues with race and class, the separation of those who have and those who have not.”
