biology

Vaccine Research Center

Vaccine Research Center is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Vaccine Research Center rather than just read about it. In short: The Vaccine Research Center (VRC), is an intramural division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The mission of the VRC is to discover and develop both vaccines and antibody-based products that target infectious diseases.

Key takeaways

Vaccine Research Center belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Vaccine Research Center to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Vaccine Research Center from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Vaccine Research Center (VRC), is an intramural division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The mission of the VRC is to discover and develop both vaccines and antibody-based products that target infectious diseases. The broad research portfolio of the VRC includes basic, clinical, and translational research into vaccines for HIV, Ebola, Marburg, and RSV, among other viruses, and therapeutic antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 (the virus responsible for COVID-19) and other pathogens.

History

The origins of the Vaccine Research Center date back to 1996 following discussions between President Bill Clinton and NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci regarding research addressing HIV/AIDS. Recognizing the potential impact a vaccine could make in decreasing the global public health burden of HIV, President Clinton in 1997 announced a plan to establish an HIV vaccine research center on the NIH campus. The dedication ceremony for the VRC took place in 1999 with President Clinton delivering the opening remarks. Named in honor of immunization advocates former Governor of Arkansas Dale Bumpers and his wife Betty Flanagan Bumpers, the Vaccine Research Center opened its doors as Building 40 on the NIH campus in 2000. The founding investigators leading the new center came from a range of scientific disciplines including virology, immunology, structural biology, bioengineering, manufacturing, clinical research and regulatory science. While HIV vaccine research and development remains a core focus, the scope of activities has expanded to include advancing scientific understanding and developing biologics for a broad array of infectious pathogens.

Leadership

Director

Deputy Director

Organization The VRC is composed of an Office of the Director, basic research laboratories and major programs. Office of the Director:

Management and Operations Scientific Partnerships and Collaborations Strategic Planning Laboratories:

Immunology Laboratory Cellular Immunology Section Flow Cytometry Core The Genome Analysis Core Human Immunology Section Immunology Section ImmunoTechnology Section Integrative Bioinformatics of Immune Systems Core Nonhuman Primate Immunogenicity Core Pandemic Response Repository through Microbial and Immune Surveillance and Epidemiology (PREMISE) Tissue Analysis Core Virus Persistence and Dynamics Section Virology Laboratory Humoral Immunology Core Humoral Immunology Section Structural Bioinformatics Core Structural Biology Section Virology Core Viral Pathogenesis Laboratory Biodefense Research Section Molecular ImmunoEngineering Section Translational Science Core Yeast Engineering Technology and Immunobiology Core Programs:

Clinical Trials Program Regulatory Science and Strategy Program Translational Research Program Vaccine Immunology Program Vaccine Production Program

Research Areas To advance scientific understanding of infectious pathogens and develop investigational biologics, the VRC maintains programs in the following: Key scientific areas:

Disease acquisition and viral pathogenesis Infection and vaccine-induced immune responses Structure-based vaccine design Structural basis for antibody-mediated virus neutralization Vaccine antigens, antibody platforms, and routes of delivery Primary disease-specific programs:

Alphaviruses (Chikungunya, Western/Eastern/Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis) Coronaviruses (SARS, MERS, SARS-CoV-2) Enterovirus D68 Filoviruses (Ebola and Marburg) HIV/AIDS Influenza Malaria Nipah Virus Paramyxoviruses (Parainfluenza Virus and Human Metapneumovirus) Respiratory Syncytial Virus Tuberculosis Zika Virus

Projects

HIV In July 2010, a collaboration between the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and officials at the Vaccine Research Center found that two human HIV antibodies, named VRC01 and VRC03, could potentially be used against a wide range of types and mutations of HIV in the design of a preventive HIV vaccine for human use, as well as in the formation of better antiretroviral therapy drug cocktails. The discovery, a potentially landmark one in the drive to find a vaccine for AIDS should it be validated and further improved.

Ebola In 2016 research efforts led by Nancy Sullivan at Vaccine Research Center and J. J. Muyembe-Tamfum from the Institut National de Recherche Biomedicale (INRB) in the Democratic Republic of Congo resulted in the discovery of a monoclonal antibody, mAb114, from a survivor from the 1995 Kikwit outbreak of Ebola virus disease. mAb114 is a monoclonal antibody therapy that is being evaluated as a treatment for Ebola virus disease and has shown great success by lowering the mortality rate from 70% to about 34% in the 2018-2020 Kivu Ebola Virus Outbreak. In August 2019, Congolese health authorities, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. National Institutes of Health promoted the use of mAb114, alongside a similar Regeneron-produced treatment, over other treatments yielding higher mortality rates, after ending clinical trials during the outbreak.

Image Gallery

Notes and references

External links Official website Vaccine Research Center brochure

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Vaccine Research Center

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Vaccine Research Center claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Vaccine Research Center before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Vaccine Research Center ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Vaccine Research Center

In research: Vaccine Research Center appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Vaccine Research Center in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Vaccine Research Center is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bethesda, Maryland, Medical research institutes in Maryland, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Vaccine Research Center outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Vaccine Research Center in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Vaccine Research Center means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Vaccine Research Center out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Vaccine Research Center in simple terms?

Why does Vaccine Research Center matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Vaccine Research Center?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Vaccine Research Center.