Michael J. Mina

Michael Joseph Mina is an American epidemiologist, immunologist and physician. He was formerly an assistant professor of Epidemiology & Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, assistant Professor of Pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and currently Chief Medical Officer at eMed. and Chief Medical and Science Officer at Oncodea.

Mina is notable for his promotion of using rapid antigen tests to halt or slow the COVID-19 pandemic.

Education Mina attended Dartmouth College receiving his bachelor's degree in Engineering and Global Health in 2006. He attended Emory University for his MD and PhD in the NIH Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP).

Mina also completed his medical residency training at Harvard Medical School, at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, in Clinical Pathology.

Career At Princeton, Mina was based in Bryan Grenfell's laboratory, where he led research on the long-term immunological consequences of measles infections. The research led to the discovery that infection with measles can erase pre-existing immunological memory in a process called "immune amnesia." The discovery was reported in Science in 2015 and suggests that measles was once responsible for as many as half of all childhood infectious diseases deaths. Mina and Grenfell have both suggested that the discovery implies that measles vaccines may be the most important vaccine in terms of reductions in childhood infectious disease mortality. His lab at Harvard conducted research related to vaccines, serology (antibody and antigen tests), infectious models and immunity. can be done at home, and can be anonymous (no reporting to government agencies). Mina claims that the paper tests' lower sensitivity makes them superior (for halting pandemics, not for clinical use) because they are positive mostly only when one is contagious whereas the PCR tests are typically positive for weeks after one is no longer contagious.