VVC Holiday Toy Drive
The Vanderbilt Vaccine Center staff and faculty donated over 60 gifts to the VUMC Children’s Hospital today! Happy Holidays!
Preparing for a return of pox
Smallpox killed upwards of 500 million people in the 20th century before the virus was eradicated from the earth by large-scale vaccination campaigns. Close relatives in the poxvirus family, including cowpox and monkeypox, are less virulent in humans.
But that doesn’t mean smallpox will never return, or that poxvirus infections will not become a greater concern as the number of immunocompromised individuals treated for disorders such as cancer continues to grow.
Research sheds light on how RSV wards off potential vaccines
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the major cause of life-threatening viral pneumonia in infants worldwide, yet despite repeated efforts, scientists have been unable to develop an effective vaccine against it.
Now a team of scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC), with colleagues in California and Pennsylvania, believe they know why the virus has been so difficult to neutralize.
Research team takes aim at Ebola virus ‘decoy protein’
Using an antibody generated at Vanderbilt University Medical Center that neutralizes the Ebola virus, researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, have determined the structure of a “decoy” protein that may enable the virus to evade detection by the immune system.
Their findings, published Aug 8 in Nature Microbiology, should aid the design of effective vaccines and antibody treatments against Ebola, which has a 50 percent mortality rate.
Vanderbilt and Human Vaccines Project launch initial studies to decode the human immune system
Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center this month began recruiting volunteers to participate in a clinical trial aimed at decoding the human “immunome,” the genetic underpinnings of the immune system.
The study is the first phase of an international effort led by the Human Vaccines Project, a public-private partnership of academic research centers, industry, non-profits and government agencies designed to accelerate the development of next-generation vaccines and immunotherapies.
[James Crowe Jr., M.D.]
James Crowe Jr., M.D.
Vaccine for Zika virus being worked on at Vanderbilt University
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Two major announcements came Tuesday regarding therapidly-spreading Zika virus in the Americas.
The Centers for Disease control announced it is at its highest level of activation, and President Barack Obama will ask Congress for nearly $2 billion to prevent it’s spread.
There have been 35 reported cases of Zika in the United States, all of them associated with travel to other countries, in Hawaii, California, Minnesota, Texas, Illinois, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Washington DC, New Jersey and Massachusetts.