Posts Tagged ‘Sabin’

Drs. Douglas R. Lowy and John T. Schiller Receive 2011 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Award

May 18th, 2011

May 18, 2011 – WASHINGTON, DC–Sabin Vaccine Institute will award its 2011 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Award to Drs. Douglas R. Lowy and John T. Schiller today for their breakthrough research which led to the development of the first vaccines intended to prevent cancer.

Drs. Lowy and Schiller made several watershed discoveries that advanced the development of vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV infection is the cause of virtually all cases of cervical cancer. Diagnosed in nearly half a million women worldwide each year, cervical cancer claims approximately 250,000 lives annually with an estimated 80% of cervical cancer cases occurring in the developing world.

“The Sabin Vaccine Institute is honored to bestow Drs. Lowy and Schiller with the 2011 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Award for their pioneering work in the fields of vaccinology and oncology,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, President of Sabin. “Millions of lives will be positively affected by Lowy and Schiller’s dedication in developing the world’s first vaccines against cervical cancer. We applaud their efforts to rid the world of this silent killer.”

» Read more: Drs. Douglas R. Lowy and John T. Schiller Receive 2011 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Award

No comments »

Posted in Global Health, Public Health

Tags:

10th Anniversary of the Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative

January 6th, 2011

2010 marked the 10-year anniversary of the Sabin Vaccine Institute’s Human Hookworm Vaccine Initiative (HHVI), the world’s first and only product development partnership (PDP) aimed at developing a vaccine to combat human hookworm infection.
In the past 10 years, the HHVI has taken three single-antigen human hookworm vaccine candidates from bench-top research into process development, two vaccine candidates through pilot production, and one vaccine candidate into clinical trials. In the fall of 2010, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs awarded a €5.9 million grant to the PDP in support of research and development of a vaccine to combat human hookworm infection.

In recognition of the tremendous milestones accomplished by the HHVI partners including Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Instituto Butantan, James Cook University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the National Institute of Parasitic Diseases, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in China, and The George Washington University, Sabin President Dr. Peter Hotez was interviewed about the need for a human hookworm vaccine and gave his thoughts on milestones for the near future.

Click here to watch an audio slideshow featuring commentary from Dr. Hotez and photos from the PDPs clinical trial site in Americaninhas, Brazil; and to learn more about the HHVI’s resolve to eliminate human hookworm infection.

No comments »

Posted in hookworm, NTDs, Public Health

Tags:

Looking Back on a Week Dedicated to Maternal Child Health

November 6th, 2009

This morning in the Capitol, a number of us from the Global Network and Sabin Vaccine Institute participated in a breakfast reception capping off a week’s worth of events around World Pneumonia Day.  The speakers themselves were thoughtful, engaging, and succinct (a beautiful thing in this city).  Senator Bill Frist, involved through his work with Save the Children and Hope Through Healing Hands, spoke about the need for public private partnerships around pneumonia and other maternal child health interventions; he also urged the community to keep pushing bills like S.1966, the Global Child Survival Act of 2009, for co-sponsors and ‘teachable moments’ with staff around the issues.  Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, whose resolution recognizing World Pneumonia Day passed this week, was also on hand to advocate for continued pneumonia awareness, urging advocates to ‘be the conscience’ for Representatives on maternal child health.  Finally, Dr. Orin Levine–a leading pneumonia advocate and member of PACE–spoke movingly about how appalling it is to have pneumonia kill so many children each year when known solutions are cheap and available.

But as I sat there drinking my coffee, I was struck by two thoughts tertiary to the event itself:

  • The Mansfield Room, in which the reception was held, is like many rooms in the Capitol in that its appearance conveys a sense of grandeur and gravitas.  To be in that room discussing maternal child health issues signaled to me that we have come a long way in bringing these issues to the fore as important, urgent matters for key policymakers
  • At the Global Network, it is easy to fall into an NTD-focused mindset. Yet an event like today’s, focused primarily on pneumonia, was remarkably relevant to the work we are doing around maternal child health as a broader platform.  Even the messaging–”cheap interventions, proven solutions, a need for partnership to deliver treatments in the field…”–echoed the messages we recite daily with respect to NTDs.  As we move forward with our policy and advocacy work, it serves both the NTD and the broad MCH communities well to exploit such overlap to the benefit of millions of mothers and children around the world.

2 comments »

Posted in Global Health

Tags: