Scientific Advisory Board
IDC is committed to the highest standards of quality in our research programs. To this end, we have assembled a board of scientific advisors who stand at the pinnacle of their specialties. These experts are world renowned in the fields of vaccine design and development, dendritic cell biology, immunological memory, and innate immunity.
Lawrence Corey, M.D. (Chairman)
- Principal Investigator of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network
- Head of Virology Division, University of Washington
- Head of Program in Infectious Diseases, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
- Professor of Medicine and Laboratory Medicine, University of Washington
Research in Dr. Corey's laboratories includes studies dealing with the pathogenesis, prevention and treatment of HIV and herpes virus infections. He has extensive experience with the development of experimental vaccines for both genital herpes and HIV. Dr. Corey's labs have also pioneered novel tests for diagnosing and monitoring therapies for viral infections. In addition, Dr. Corey is an attending physician in infectious disease at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He has served on the editorial boards of several prestigious journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Corey has authored 9 books and 470 publications on infectious disease topics. Dr. Corey received his bachelor's and medical degrees from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and received his infectious disease training at the University of Washington. He is the recipient of the Pan American Society's Clinical Virology Award, the American Society for STD Research's Parran Award, and the University of Michigan Medical School's Distinguished Alumnus Award.
Rafi Ahmed, Ph.D.
- Director, Emory Vaccine Center
- Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine
Dr. Ahmed studies immunological memory - the ability of the immune system to "remember" a particular antigen and respond accordingly. He and his colleagues have made significant discoveries about how immune memory cells are created and how long they survive; understanding these mechanisms is crucial to the development of vaccines for HIV and other infectious agents. He is an internationally recognized expert on viral persistence and the immune response to viruses. In addition to contributing vitally to vaccine science, Dr. Ahmed's findings are being applied to research into therapies for the treatment of cancer and the prevention of organ rejection. Dr. Ahmed received his PhD in microbiology from Harvard University. Before to Emory, he was a Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine.
David Baltimore, Ph.D.
- Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology, California Institute of Technology
Dr. Baltimore is co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of reverse transcriptase. He is currently the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, where he was the president from 1997 to 2006, and the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. While at MIT, Baltimore was founding director of the Whitehead Institute. He has had profound influence on national policy concerning recombinant DNA research and the AIDS epidemic. Dr. Baltimore is a member of the Board of Directors of Amgen, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Board of Sponsors, Encyclopædia Britannica editorial board, NIH AIDS vaccine task force, and numerous other organizations and their boards. He received a B.A. from Swarthmore College and Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.
Richard Klausner, M.D.
Dr. Klausner is the former Executive Director for Global Health of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Director of the National Cancer Institute. He has served as an Advisor to the Presidents of the Academies for counter-terrorism, Liaison to the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, President of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, and Chairman of the National Science Education Standards Projects of the National Academy of Sciences. His research has been recognized with awards including the Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Federation of Clinical Research, the William Damashek Prize, the Dickson Prize in Medicine, and the Raymond Bourgine Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ralph M. Steinman, M.D.
- Henry G. Kunkel Professor, The Rockefeller University
- Director, Chris Browne Center for Immunology and Immune Diseases
- Senior physician, The Rockefeller University Hospital
Dr. Steinman is world renowned for his discovery of dendritic cells and their critical role in the initiation of immune responses in clinically important situations such as graft rejection, resistance to tumors, autoimmune diseases, and infectious diseases. His current research addresses the fundamental mechanisms of immunity and their relationship with human diseases, including studies aimed at developing vaccines and immune-based therapies for tumors, infections and autoimmune diseases. Steinman's research points to dendritic cells as the critical sentinels of the body that fundamentally regulate the induction of both immune tolerance and activation. Dr. Steinman received a B.S. degree, with honors, from McGill University, and an M.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Medical School. He is a corresponding fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine, and a recipient of numerous prestigious awards. Steinman is editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine and advisory editor of Human Immunology, the Journal of Clinical Immunology, the Journal of Immunological Methods, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Inder M. Verma, Ph.D.
- Professor, Laboratory of Genetics
- American Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology, Salk Institute, La Jolla
Dr. Verma is one of the world's leading authorities on the development and use of engineered viruses for gene therapy. Dr. Verma and colleagues developed a gene therapy vector, based on a stripped-down version of HIV, that can deliver genes to non-dividing cells. In addition to gene therapy technologies, Dr Verma's major research interests are cellular genes whose alteration can cause or suppress cancer. Dr. Verma received a master's degree from Lucknow University, and a Ph.D. from The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovoth, Israel. After postdoctoral study at MIT in the laboratory of the Nobel laureate David Baltimore, he joined the faculty of The Salk Institute. For his many outstanding accomplishments, Dr. Verma was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and as a Foreign Fellow to the National Academy of Sciences, India. Dr. Verma was also elected to the Third World Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.