Page 13 – Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center

Read about our 2019 successes in the VIC Holiday Letter

Message from the Director

Dr. Mark C. Poznansky

Dear Friends of VIC – 2019 has been a very exciting and productive year for us. We set out at the beginning of the year to achieve four new and key goals: to bring the B cell immunotherapy study to first in human testing; to expand the Q fever vaccine and islet transplantation development studies; to develop a new research program around high dimensional immunology or HDI. In 12 short months we have achieved all of these goals with the tremendous help of the core senior scientific team including Drs. Reeves, Chen, Alagpulinsa and Sîrbulescu and our amazing Associate Director, Dr. Ann Sluder and Project and Administrative Manager, Phoebe Ingram. These individual stories of research success are detailed below, and I hope that you will find time to read them. We continue to attract funding support from US government agencies, private foundations and biotech companies but none of this work could be completed in this expedited time frame without the tremendous support of our philanthropic donors. I will call out a couple of highlights of the year in addition, relating to the Melvyn Field Innovation Award which went to Dr. Sîrbulescu this year for her pioneering and visionary work on the role of B cells in tissue regeneration and the Will Tankard Junior Scientist Award to Skylar Korek for his outstanding work on the High Dimensional Immunology program. Our invited Prof. Dulcie Coleman lecturer this year was Prof. Ann Leen from the University of Texas who gave an outstanding talk about her novel cell therapy for viral infections that occur in immune suppressed patients. Finally, I would like to thank all our donors who have made this possible and brought VIC so successfully into its 11th year of existence since its foundation in 2008.

Novel B Cell Immunotherapy for First Clinical Indication Goes First in Human.

A huge step forward was achieved at VIC, taking the entirely serendipitous discovery made by Dr. Ruxandra Sîrbulescu that B cells from the blood could both protect and enhance the regeneration of tissues, to a first in human study of safety in under a year. This work was then transitioned to the exploration of the use of B cells to facilitate healing in the brain following traumatic injury. This work and findings are part of protected intellectual property. Dr. Sîrbulescu discovered that B cells could enhance tissue regeneration and augment healing and reduce brain damage in mouse models of this disease. These remarkable and subsequently published findings were then fast tracked to first in human studies – primarily of safety in a patient. The essence of getting this complex project done was teamwork managed at VIC and involving scientists, physiciansandnursesattheMGHandDFCI. Noneofthis work, from bench to bedside could have been completed without generous philanthropic support particularly from the Ward Family Foundation.

Q-VaxCelerate Program to Initiate Second International Consortium for Vaccine Studies

The VIC-led international Q-VaxCelerate consortium, with funding from the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), continues to advance the development of a novel vaccine for Q fever. A potentially debilitating bacterial disease that can be transmitted from small livestock such as sheep and goats, Q fever is of concern for troops deployed to the Middle East and Afghanistan as well as for workers in the livestock industry. Building on the immunological studies of the current program, VIC has received notification of new DTRA funding for a study to characterize more fully the immune responses to an existing Q fever vaccine used in Australia, which although effective can cause significant reactive side effects. The results of this study will guide clinical assessment of new vaccines designed to avoid the side effects.

Beta Cell Transplantation for Type 1 Diabetes Without Immune Suppression Advances with the Continuing Support of JDRF.

The team of scientists at VIC has led the way in developing a new and relatively simple system for implanting insulin producing human stem cell derived beta cells (from Dr. Douglas Melton’s laboratory at Harvard) into small and large diabetic animals without the need to suppress the recipient animal’s immune system. With the tremendous support of JDRF, Dr. David Alagpulinsa and Michael Chapin have worked with Dr. James Markmann and Dr. Ji Lei from Transplant Surgery at MGH to explore the use of this approach in a large animal model of diabetes. To date we have demonstrated long term survival and function of these transplanted beta cells without the need for additional medication and a greatly reduced need for insulin injections. JDRF has seen fit to expand our initial work in small numbers of large animals and this expansion phase of the study is currently under way. This work could not have been completed without seamless collaboration between the Melton and Markmann teams integrated with VIC’s efforts. VIC’s work in the beta cell transplantation arena has been featured by JDRF at meetings and on its website which can be viewed here.

New High-Dimensional Immunology (HDI) Program to Build Comprehensive Pictures of Immune Responses in Human Disease

A new initiative that has been accelerated by philanthropic support, the VIC HDI program, takes a wholistic approach to understanding human inflammatory and immune responses. The overall program objective is to develop new diagnostics and tools that can inform clinical decisions and guide therapeutic discovery and development. Using multiple state of the art high-parameter technologies, emphasis is placed on maximizing the information obtained from small clinical samples of blood or tissue. VIC HDI scientists have developed proprietary computational strategies and use public domain and proprietary algorithms for analyzing multiple types of high- dimensional data and for identifying specific immune system responses associated with clinical measures and outcomes. Current active projects address a variety of clinical areas, including infectious disease vaccines, the immune microenvironment in solid tumors, immune system changes following organ transplantation or traumatic injury, and immune dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases and type 1 diabetes.

Staff and Investigators at VIC wish you all a wonderful Holiday Season and thank you for your generosity the last year!

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New York Times Op-ed: This Is the Truth About Vaccines

While there are certainly thoughts, ideas and technologies progressing rapidly in the United States today, it remains that there are many Americans who do not vaccinate themselves and/or their children. Recently, there have been so few cases of these “ancient” diseases that people often underestimate their ability to contract such diseases. Further, since the publishing […]

JDRF & the Will Tankard Scholarship

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) when I was 9 years old. One day I was a considered a healthy child and the next I was I learning how to manage a life-changing and chronic disease. My parents were bombarded with books and other resources on how to treat my disease and how […]

2018 Inaugural Professor Dulcie Coleman Lecture

On May 3rd, 2018 the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center(VIC) at MGH hosted the inaugural Professor Dulcie Coleman lecture in the historic Ether Dome at MGH in Boston. This lecture series, which will take place annually, is hosted by Dr. Mark C. Poznansky, Director of VIC, in memory of his mother, Professor Dulcie Coleman, a pre-eminent scientist […]

Friends of VIC Summer Gathering

Dr. Mark Poznansky, Director of VIC, hosted an evening of dinner and conversation for the Friends of VIC, our generous donors and supporters. The event took place in the elegant Trustees dining room at MGH. Prior to the dinner, guests were given a guided tour of the historic Ether Dome as shown in the photo. […]

The Epic Duo: Doctors and Data

In many of the “superhero” stories of our culture, from Batman and Robin to Sherlock and Watson, a superhero has an indispensable sidekick. Now, some real-life superheroes, notably doctors, are being paired up with a new sidekick, artificial intelligence (AI), that also may prove to be indispensable. This new dynamic duo might be the best […]

Dulcie Coleman Award 2017

Time flies when you’re having fun, or so they say, and three months at VIC have gone by in a flash. It’s hard to believe my time here has drawn to a close! In the time that I’ve been here, I’ve explored the beautiful city of Boston, gotten to know many excellent scientists at VIC, […]

VIC at Myopia Hunt Club 2017

Polo, a sport originating in ancient Persia, has been played for over two thousand years. The name derives from the word “pulu”, which means “ball” in Balti, a Tibetic language spoken in South Asia. In the early 19th century, the modern sport of Polo was introduced to the western world through British India. It is […]

Training The Next Generation of Scientists

Training the next generation of scientists is an important part of VIC’s mission and is also a win-win situation for both the trainee and VIC. The trainee needs to gain formative scientific experience and develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, while hands-on experiences can help inspire students to further their education and prepare them for their careers. “My aim is to be able to work at the intersection between clinical practice and medical research” says Claire, an undergraduate medical student at Imperial College, London, on the reason why she chose to do her training at VIC. “I joined VIC because I was really attracted to the idea of scientific innovation and cutting edge research” reaffirms Prapti, a student at Wellesley. Trainees at VIC are from the US and abroad, and range from high school students to postdocs. Highly-trained senior scientists mentor VIC’s interns and have a huge impact in shaping a students’ career. “Hands-on research would enhance my practice of evidence-based medicine and hone skills that, in the future, as a humanitarian physician, I will be able to apply beyond the lab bench” asserts Reyna, a pre-med student at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine.

VIC, on the other side, can further develop its research thanks to the participation of these young scientists. The training program is an exciting opportunity for VIC that often results in a peer-reviewed publication. “As a returning student, I knew I would find myself both challenged and exceptionally well mentored here at VIC, as I had two summers prior” indicates Anders, a recent graduate of McGill University and currently applying to Medical Schools; and, as he likes to point out, is a returning student because the skills and knowledge he learns during his time at VIC could not be acquired in a classroom at university.

The Importance Of Being A Philanthropist

There is something in common between the 10^th century BC in ancient Greece, the 17^th century in Baroque-style Europe and in the US today; philanthropy! Now, more than ever, philanthropic help is essential. Philanthropy is not solely restricted to the arts, philosophy and culture in general, but has been elevated to embrace a more general “love of humanity”. And, if in the past that love of humanity was ascribed mainly to culture and art, it has expanded to encompass science and technology. The upward progress of humanity comes though science and technology and through the re-evaluation of human values. Although philanthropy has become chic and can attract celebrities and the wealthy, it can really boost and support science research; especially as government financing has continued to plunge in recent years. From Silicon Valley to Wall Street (mainly in the high-tech sectors) the new philanthropists have made science philanthropy hot and attractive. Social progress is now, not only achieved through culture and art, but also through scientific research. This private support has, however, also raised questions about the future of research for the public good. Philanthropy can change the direction of research; this is a fact, although controversial as it is filling the gaps left by the reduction of government funding and so becomes more important than ever. But, many ideas are not funded by federal funds because of skepticism or because they are considered too risky. Philanthropy can, therefore, be used in these situations to catalyze ideas at the very early stages. Once these ideas are successfully developed, government funding can be more easily obtained and used to expand and develop the initial idea further.

VIC has already envisioned the possibilities and embraced philanthropy as a crucial part in the support of specific projects and pilot studies. Private philanthropy has contributed actively to the success of VIC, shaping VIC to the center it is now. Without this support, VIC would not have made important scientific discoveries and developments. In particular, many of these private investments are intelligently and successfully used during the early phase of a project (or a study). Scientists leading these projects receive unique mentorship, guidance and support from the VIC management team which enables them, and VIC, to leverage funding from government organizations. Although it might appear a simple strategy, VIC has anticipated, and predicted, this as a successful path to accelerate the development of novel studies to “survive” in the increasingly challenging environment of government funding for scientific research.

One of the most interesting aspects of modern philanthropy is that is not confined to the rich. Literally anyone can be a philanthropist and make an impact towards social progress. Science can benefit from everyone’s generosity, whether they are wealthy individuals or not, and the latter may well share a bigger percent of their income to charity and philanthropy. It is not a matter of how much a person can donate but rather where and how that person wants to make their donation. Indeed, VIC has a group of young professionals who are actively involved in arranging events to help raise funds. We can all contribute to the love and good of humanity and one way to do it is to focus on science philanthropy!