EpiVax CEO heads new vaccine research institute

02/20/09 - The University of Rhode Island has appointed Dr. Annie S. De Groot, a prominent Providence scientist, to head its new Institute for Immunology and Informatics, which will develop vaccines."I'm very, very excited about it," De Groot said yesterday. "I think it represents an exciting new opportunity to teach undergraduate and graduate students about researching vaccines and do some great research operations."

The institute on the Providence campus will serve as a center for collaborative research among scientists and students. With the use of computers, they will be able to understand and manipulate the genetic sequences of bacteria and viruses.

A Brown University faculty member, De Groot will keep her post at the Ivy League school in Providence. This year she also became a professor in URI's department of cell and molecular biology. She will also continue in her role as CEO of EpiVax, a privately owned, Providence-based company that studies vaccine development that she co-founded in 1998.

At EpiVax, De Groot is working to develop vaccines for dengue fever, malaria, tuberculosis, schistomiasis, HPV, smallpox, tularemia and HIV. She has been studying Helicobacter pylori and working to find a vaccine to prevent stomach cancers caused by this bacterium. She will continue the work at the new URI center.

"Vaccines are one of the most efficient ways to improve human health because you can prevent disease, rather than cure it," De Groot said.

De Groot already has an extensive background in developing vaccines. In 2002, she traveled to Bamako, Mali to establish the nonprofit organization Global Alliance to Immunize Against AIDS (GAIA). Through this program she developed the GAIA vaccination that is used to vaccinate humans worldwide for HIV. She has returned to the West African nation every three months since 2002 to continue her research with the program.

"In most little villages there is no HIV care," De Groot said. "I'm one of those crazy people who want to give back. I think there are things to be done to improve human health and one of the best and most effective ways to do so is to vaccinate."

Since 2004, Brown University undergraduate students involved in the GAIA program have accompanied De Groot to Africa to aid in HIV research. There, students try to figure out how people feel about HIV, distribute condoms and promote HIV awareness. De Groot said there will be opportunities for URI undergraduates to become involved with the GAIA program in abroad.

In Sikoro, a village within Bamako, De Groot and her team of students built an HIV clinic where clinical trials for the HIV vaccine are conducted.

"Working with people in developing world countries is a really great experience," De Groot said. "I hope to bring students pursuing degrees in medicine and research from West Africa back to the new lab to train them how to make vaccines."

In April De Groot plans to travel to Singapore, then to Japan in June to take part in a conference she has organized. She will also travel to Dublin, Ireland, where she has been invited to a conference. That same month she will return to Mali.

At the URI institute, she will work alongside several scientists, including Leonard Moise, the director of the vaccine research program at EpiVax, and Marta Gomez-Chiam, a fisheries researcher working to develop vaccines for fish. They hope to obtain a grant to fund research for vaccines that may be helpful in combating biological warfare and terrorist attacks.

Some of her research has been in collaboration with Lifespan, an association of five Rhode Island hospitals that also conducts research.