The global Expanded Programme on Immunizations, launched in 1974, is estimated to have saved 154 million lives over the past 50 years (WHO, 2024). Vaccines are thus the single greatest medical intervention contributing to human health and saving lives. Newer vaccines, such as for COVID-19, malaria, Ebola and HPV vaccines, will increase the global health benefits in the coming years.
Vaccine research efforts in the Center for Vaccines & Immunology are focused on a range of pathogens causing life-threatening and chronic diseases. Efforts are underway to understand and improve current vaccines for influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, and SARS-CoV2 (COVID-19).
Participating Faculty and Labs
Geert-Jan Boons, PhD, UGA Distinguished Professor in Biochemical Sciences
Carbohydrate-based bacterial vaccines | Self-adjuvating vaccines | Immune modulators and adjuvants
Lok Raj Joshi, PhD, Assistant Professor, Core faculty Precision One Health Initiative
Virus pathogenesis | Vectored and mRNA vaccine development | Next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics | Antibody delivery systems and gene therapy | Diagnostic assay development | Emerging zoonotic virus preparedness
Chet Joyner, PhD, Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases, Assistant Director of the Center for Vaccines & Immunology
Identification of new malaria vaccine candidates | Evaluation of malaria vaccine candidates in preclinical models | Development of vaccines for malaria | Understanding the mechanistic basis of immunological memory | Molecular biology of B cells and Plasma cells
Sam Kurup, PhD, Associate Professor of Biology of Parasitism
Mechanism of natural and acquired immunity to malaria | Regulatory T cell biology | T cell antigen discovery
Nathan E. Lewis, PhD, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar and Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Center for Molecular Medicine and Complex Carbohydrate Research Center
Design and optimization of vaccine glycoproteins | Vaccine manufacturing | Systems biology | Cell-cell communication in immunology
Xiaorong Lin, PhD, Professor of Microbiology, Gene E. Michaels Distinguished Professor in Medical Mycology
Fungal adaptation to the host | Development of mRNA vaccines against fungal diseases | Development of targeted anti-fungal drug therapy
Karen Norris, PhD, Professor of Infectious Diseases, Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, Charles H. Wheatley Endowed Chair in Translational Biomedical Science
Host responses to invasive fungal infections | Development of broadly reactive pan-fungal vaccine | Development of anti-fungal monoclonal antibody therapeutics
Daniel Perez, PhD, Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator and Caswell S. Eidson Chair in Poultry Medicine, Department of Population Health
Vaccine development against respiratory pathogens of humans and animals | Role of microbiome and probiotics in natural resistance to virus infections | Host responses to respiratory virus infections
Whitney Rabacal, PhD, Research Assistant Professor
Broadly reactive pan-fungal vaccines | Anti-fungal monoclonal antibody therapeutics | Development of animal models of invasive fungal diseases
S. Mark Tompkins, PhD, UGA Athletic Association Distinguished Professor in Virology and Immunology, Director of the Center for Vaccines & Immunology
Host response to respiratory pathogen infection | Pathogen-pathogen interactions | Emerging viruses and risk assessment | Vaccine-elicited immunity
