Vision + culture

The Emory Vaccine Center was established in 1996 with support from Emory University and the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) that provided funds for the recruitment of Director Rafi Ahmed, Ph.D., as a GRA Eminent Scholar in Vaccine Development, and five additional new faculty in the Departments of Microbiology and Immunology, Pathology, and Medicine. Today, the Vaccine Center has 18 faculty whose total grant funding in 2002 topped $15 million. Of the 20 scientists at Emory University with new or competing awards of at least $1.5 million in 2002, four are located at our center. In addition, the Center’s publications are among the most highly cited papers from Emory. Among our recent major accomplishments are: the FDA approval for Dr. Harriet Robinson’s AIDS vaccine that is now moving into Phase I clinical trials; the establishment of a biotech company, GeoVax, to shepherd promising vaccines to market; the opening of the Hope Clinic, directed by Dr. Mark Feinberg, to host vaccine clinical trials and foster translational research; and Dr. Mary Galinski’s establishment of a formal malaria research partnership with Brazilian investigators studying malaria transmission and immunity in malaria endemic regions of the Amazon.

The Vaccine Center’s success over the past five years can be attributed to several crucial factors, including highly capable leadership, the balance of basic, translational, and clinical research, the construction of a new building, and the emphasis on interaction among faculty and researchers. The latter is facilitated through regular meetings such as the well-attended “Third Friday” seminars at which laboratories take turns presenting their latest research to the entire Center. This high level of interaction and communication has produced collaborative research, exemplified by several NIH program projects through the Center for AIDS Research, IPCAVD, and HIVRAD for the development of AIDS vaccines, as well as translational, cross-disciplinary work and cooperative endeavors among investigators at the EVC as well as other institutions in the U.S. and Europe, South America, Africa, India and Australia.

Particularly vital to creating the necessary synergistic environment was the 1999 opening of a 76,000-square-foot Vaccine Research Building at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center. The new building was made possible by the support of the leadership at Yerkes and the School of Medicine, which not only pursued funding from the National Center for Research Resources and the GRA but also took on debt to construct a larger building than originally proposed.

Dr. Ahmed played a key role in shaping the Center’s focus on the continuum of vaccine research, from basic science to translational research to clinical trials. With his strong leadership and enthusiastic support from the School of Medicine and the Woodruff Health Sciences Center, the Emory Vaccine Center has established an internationally renowned program in a relatively short time. This momentum must continue, as future challenges include positioning the Vaccine Center as a key contributor to national biodefense research, recruiting additional faculty, and identifying additional opportunities for growing research programs.