The rockefeller university

Event Details

Type

Friday Lecture Series

Speaker(s)

Peter Palese, Ph.D., Horace W. Goldsmith Professor and chair, department of microbiology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Speaker bio(s)

Available influenza virus vaccines are effective in healthy individuals but are usually re-formulated annually due to antigenic drift of the circulating viruses. Thus, influenza vaccination programs requiring yearly reimmunization are both expensive and difficult to implement. Recent reports on broadly neutralizing anti-influenza hemagglutinin antibodies suggest that eliciting broad-spectrum humoral immunity against influenza viruses should be possible, given the right immunogen. Most broadly neutralizing anti-influenza hemagglutinin antibodies bind to the conserved but immuno-subdominant stalk region of the hemagglutinin molecule. In order to induce such antibodies via vaccination, Dr. Palese's lab has designed different hemagglutinin-based immunogens. These novel constructs (for example, headless hemagglutinins, chimeric hemagglutinins) direct the immune response against the stalk domain, efficiently boosting a cross-reactive immune response. Preliminary data from heterologous virus challenge experiments in mice suggest that these novel vaccine constructs are able to induce high levels of broadly neutralizing antibodies that protect against morbidity and mortality. The development of a universal influenza virus vaccine that — similar to the existing polio and measles virus vaccines — requires a single or only a few immunizations represents a major advance towards the control of influenza worldwide.

Dr. Palese earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Vienna in 1969. He was then a postdoc at Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in New Jersey studying virology until 1971, when he was hired to the department of microbiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. In 1978 he was named professor and in 1987 he became the chair of the department, which he remains today. Among many honors, Dr. Palese was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2000 for his seminal studies on influenza viruses, and he was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2012. He was president of The Harvey Society from 2003 to 2004, and president of the American Society for Virology from 2005 to 2006. In 2008 he received the Charles C. Shepard Science Award from the Centers for Disease Control and in 2012 he received the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award.

Open to

Public

Host

Michel Nussenzweig

Reception

Refreshments, 3:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m., Abby Lounge

Contact

Gloria Phipps

Phone

(212) 327-8967

Sponsor

Gloria Phipps
(212) 327-8967
phippsg@rockefeller.edu