COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 and the Pandemic
MIT professors Richard Young and Facundo Batista lead this fifteen-week seminar series recorded live in Fall 2020, tracking the science of the pandemic as it was still unfolding. Lectures cover the virology of SARS-CoV-2, immune response, vaccine development, and public health strategy, with guest sessions from researchers including Anthony Fauci, David Baltimore, Kizzmekia Corbett, Akiko Iwasaki, and Eric Lander. The course captures a moment when vaccine trials were underway and testing strategy was still being debated, with speakers discussing their own labs' current findings rather than settled textbook material. Materials consist of the recorded lecture videos published through MIT OpenCourseWare under its standard open license, free to watch with no enrollment required. There are no problem sets or exams, but the range of guest expertise, from immunology to epidemiology to therapeutics, gives it more depth than a typical single-speaker talk.