Vaccine Day 2009

On October 9th, 2009, the Johns Hopkins Vaccine Initiative (JHVI) hosted the second annual Vaccine Day at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and were pleased to host special guest, Dr. Brian Greenwood, Manson Professor of Clinical Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Vaccine Day festivities officially began on October 8th with a Meet the Professors session in the 9th floor cafe at the School of Public Health. Students interested in vaccine research were invited to socialize with representative faculty working in vaccine research at the School of Public Health and the School of Medicine. It was an opportunity for students, researchers, professors and Dr. Greenwood to network and get to know one another outside of the classroom and lab.

On October 9th, Vaccine Day began at 12:30 in Sommer Hall with an introduction by Ruth Karron, M.D., Director of the Johns Hopkins Vaccine Initiative and a keynote address by Brian Greenwood, MD.

Dr. Greenwood’s talk was entitled “Vaccination to Prevent Pneumonia in Children: An African Perspective”.

Dr Greenwood’s talk was followed by a panel discussion moderated by Brenda Wilson, National Public Radio Science and Health Correspondent. Panelists included Derek Cummings, PhD, MPH, William Moss, MD, MPH, Katherine O’Brien, MD, MPH, Andrew Pekosz, PhD, and Damian Walker, PhD.  The faculty panel discussed and debated the question “Thinking primarily in terms of vaccine interventions, will we ever be able to reduce the pneumonia mortality rates in resource-poor settings to the levels that we observe in wealthy countries (and if so, what will it take)?”

Vaccine Day 2009 Poster Session

Following the presentation and panel discussion, Vaccine Day moved to Feinstone Hall for the faculty, staff and student poster session and reception. 32 posters were submitted by students, faculty and staff for Vaccine Day 2009, showcasing work from four departments. The posters highlighted the breadth of vaccine research being conducted at the School, and described pre-clinical studies, phase I and II clinical trials, cost effectiveness studies, policy analysis, and implementation studies.

Prizes were awarded for the four most outstanding student posters:

• First Place: Wen-Hsuan Lin
  Route of Immunization Influences the Induction of Humoral, Cellular and Protective Immunity by Live Attenuated Measles Vaccine in Rhesus Macaques
• Second Place: Julia Hutter
  Naturally-Acquired and Vaccine-Induced Protective Immunity and Antibody Persistence to Haemophilus influenzae Type b (Hib) in Malian Children. Serological Assessment of the Recently Implemented Hib Vaccine Schedule in Mali.
• Third Place: Allison Cory Brown
  In Utero Exposure to Maternal Schistosomiasis Modulates both Acute and Memory Cellular and Humoral Immune Responses to Vaccines
• Fourth Place: John Linnehan
  A Generalized Decision Tree Cost-Effectiveness Model to Guide Enteric Vaccine Development: A Case Study of Cholera in Bangladesh

View the presentation by Dr Greenwood and the panel discussion.