Exploratory Working Group on Vaccine Development

HIV vaccine researchers at UMass Chan have made and are continuing to make a significant contribution to the vaccine field.  UMass Chan was one of the founding places of DNA vaccination, which is now a critical component of many vaccine programs.  There are rich opportunities here for developing new and further collaborative research, particularly in antigen/immunogen design and delivery, and in the immune responses.  This EWG will also liaise closely with the ‘Innate and Adaptive Immunity’ EWG to ensure that both innate and adaptive responses are considered in vaccine design, and with the ‘HIV Replication and Host Factors’ SWG to identify HIV-1 envelope proteins for testing immunogenicity. 

Leadership

 
Shan Lu, MD, PhD is a pioneer of DNA vaccines.  In addition to HIV vaccines, he has worked on vaccines against emerging infectious disease and biodefense targets.  He is president of the International Society for Vaccines (ISV), an organization of the world's leading  vaccine scientists, elected at the 5th ISV Annual Global Congress in October, 2011.