Last winter, you might have seen the headlines about rising hospitalizations from respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.

Healthcare providers now have tools to help prevent lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV in adults 60 years and older.

This fall and winter is the first respiratory season when RSV vaccinations will be available in the United States to help protect against RSV for older adults.

Scientific American Custom Media recently sat down with Dr. Temi-Folaranmi, Vice President and Head, U.S. Medical and Clinical Affairs, Vaccines at GSK, in this GSK-sponsored segment to learn more about

RSV, the immune system, and vaccinations.

Well, Dr. Fuller on me, it's such a pleasure to talk with you today. Thank you for joining me.

Thank you for having me on your podcast.

So before we dig into the details of this

conversation, I'm really curious about you and your background. Specifically, you've spent

your whole career combating diseases and viruses. You've worked on meningitis, polio, HIV,

both in Nigeria and in the U.S.

So what sparked this interest for you?

I trained as a physician and I also approached graduate training in public health and public policy.

This training is important for my career because I think the intersection between clinical

practice, public health and public policy, and the broader

scientific community is so important that our publicate policy have strong foundation

in science, and I've spent a lot of my careers helping to inform publicate policies and

programs based on sound research and data.

I think for me, growing up in developing country like Nigeria, I see various cases of infectious

disease. I develop that passion very quickly that it's an area that I want to contribute to

focusing on disease prevention as well as treatment.

And I feel that one area that I can really make an impact is in that publicate space where we can use data to make population-level decision that will have impact on the life of a broader group of people

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