Section: Research

Jeff Kennedy, M.D.

Academic Role: Assistant Professor

Faculty Appointment(s) In:
   Medicine

Research Interests

1. Assessment of the immune response of novel vaccines in Phase 1 Human Clinical Trials
   
2. Biomarker assay development for emerging viral vaccines and diseases
   
3. Immunological correlates of adverse responses to vaccines, particularly smallpox vaccine.

Clinical Research Facility

The CIDVR has recently established in collaboration with the Department of Anesthesiology a Phase 1 Clinical Research Unit.  This unit is closely tied to the Biomarker laboratory and provides pharmaceutical partners with a GCP-compliant clinical research unit for phase 1 testing of candidate vaccines.  A database for volunteers and a vaccine information site is now a component of the CIDVR website.

Vaccine Biomarker Laboratory

As the Director of the Biomarker laboratory for the CIDVR, this facility allows scientists to ask questions regarding measures of protective immune responses using a facility that provides two novel research approaches;

1. a cell and serum respository from individuals globally that are naturally infected with viruses
   
2. a quality control laboratory that provides expertise to pharmaceutical partners and allows our scientists to translate new immunological approaches to the testing of cellular and humeral immunity to vaccine candidates.

As a new NIH sponsored center for the study of human immune response to viral infection, the CIDVR will focus on emerging viral pathogens to develop new approaches towards understanding protective immunity in individuals indigenously infected with these pathogens.  THe biomarker laboratory focuses on translating this knowledge to the area of vaccine development.  The CIDVR presently coordinates an international research program that facilitates the acquisition of samples for the cell repository.  Through research collaboration our group focuses on developing new assays for the assessment of human immune responses to viruses.  These assays are then translated to  clinical phase 1 evaluation of new vaccine candidates to viral diseases.  Developing virus-specific assays that can be applied to new candidate vaccines have the potential to impact vaccine development timelines.  Our group has recently developed new techniques for the assessment of immediate cellular immune response to smallpox vaccines and determined those elements that form the effective maintenance of long term humoral and cellular memory to viruses. 

Current vaccines in clinical development that are part of the laboratory’s research include next-generation smallpox vaccines, a DNA based HIV vaccine, and chimeric vaccine for WNV.  New and novel DNA, live virus and chimeric vaccines to emerging viruses such as HIV, variola virus (smallpox), and West Nile viruses have entered human clinical testing at the CIDVR Biomarker Laboratory. In addition the use of a human cell repository maintained by our laboratory to a wide variety of human viral diseases, enables us to use these human cell specimens to identify viral protein epitopes that may serve as useful biomarkers in assessing human memory response to viruses, as well as understanding immunopathogenesis involved in adverse reactions to vaccines. 

Office: S6-749
Phone: 508-856-2886
E-mail: Jeffrey.Kennedy.Forward@umassmed.edu
Keywords: Immunology, Infectious Disease

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