Division of Immunobiology

Department of Medicine

Undernourished children are more vulnerable to pathogens and more likely to die from vaccine-preventable infectious disease, even when vaccinated. Research by Benjamin Lee, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics, points to gut health as a contributing factor.

Meet Tina Thornton, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine, co-director of I-Trep, a UVM-based biomedical entrepreneurship training initiative, and UVM faculty lead of the National Science Foundation Interior Northeast I-Corps Hub, which offers entrepreneurship training for student, postdoc, faculty, and other scientists and engineers.

Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, UVM and the Larner College of Medicine have shown that improving metabolic health in obese mice before vaccination, but not after, protects against influenza virus.

There are currently no approved vaccines available to prevent Lyme disease in humans, but one may be on the way. UVM’s Vaccine Testing Center recently launched a clinical study to investigate the efficacy, safety, and immunogenicity of a Lyme disease vaccine.

Celdara Medical and UVM Professor of Medicine Jason Botten, Ph.D., have received a Phase II Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that will support the ongoing development of therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of Hantavirus Cardiopulmonary Syndrome – a severe respiratory disease caused by rodent-borne hantaviruses.

Promising young scientists from colleges across the UVM campus gathered recently to celebrate the broad training experience, varied investigations, and collaborative community of UVM’s postdoctoral scholars. Organized by the UVM Postdoctoral Association, the event provided a chance for the scholars to present their research and network with peers.

In the past several months, cases of polio have been reported in New York, the United Kingdom, and Israel, underscoring the need for safer and more effective vaccines. Over the past nearly two years, University of Vermont Vaccine Testing Center researchers have been conducting trials on two experimental polio vaccines poised to help accomplish global eradication.

Jason Botten, Ph.D., professor of medicine and associate director of the Vermont Biomedical Research Network, received a University of Vermont SPARK-VT grant to help commercialize his work to develop broad-spectrum antiviral therapeutics, following a faculty pitch competition held in June 2022.

University of Vermont Chair of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D., will present her 2021-22 University Scholar lecture on "Combatting Global Infectious Diseases: Vaccines and Human Models," on Monday, April 4, 2022.

​For Professor Elizabeth Bonney, M.D., M.P.H., juggling the roles of scientist, clinician, mentor, and advocate has been the norm for decades. So, it’s no surprise that in a year turned upside-down by the COVID-19 pandemic, the delayed reckoning with racial injustice in America, and political turmoil, she has forged ahead with her science, delivered care on the front lines, and used this pivotal moment in history to raise issues of critical importance not only to science, but society.

A team of scientists at the University of Vermont, working in partnership with a group at the University of Washington, has developed a method of testing for the COVID-19 virus that doesn’t make use of these chemicals but still delivers an accurate result, paving the way for inexpensive, widely available testing in both developing countries and industrialized nations like the United States, where reagent supplies are again in short supply.

University of Vermont scientists, physicians, and students gathered at the Larner College of Medicine February 6 for the first-ever on-campus “virus slam” hosted by the Translational Global Infectious Diseases Research Center. At the event, some twenty experts, from five UVM colleges and institutes, gave five-minute mini-talks that ranged from explaining the biochemistry of the virus’ interaction with the human immune system to interpreting the latest data from the World Health Organization.

More than a dozen Larner College of Medicine faculty and scientists were recognized during the awards portion of the 14th annual Invention to Venture (I2V) conference April 5, 2019.

Three innovative projects spanning the fields of regenerative medicine, electrophysiology, and infectious diseases were selected to receive SPARK-VT research funding following a June 22 proposal presentation meeting at which University of Vermont faculty applicants pitched ideas to a panel of consultants from the biomedical and biotech arena. The awardees include UVM Larner College of Medicine Department of Medicine faculty members Daniel Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., Jason Botten, Ph.D., and Peter Spector, M.D.

Vaccinations have begun in a first-in-human trial of an experimental live, attenuated Zika virus vaccine developed by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. The trial will enroll a total of 28 healthy, non-pregnant adults ages 18 to 50 at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Immunization Research in Baltimore, Md., and at the Vaccine Testing Center at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont in Burlington.

Beth Kirkpatrick, M.D., has been appointed as chair of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Vermont, effective March 1, 2018.

University of Vermont researchers Sean Diehl, Ph.D., assistant professor of medicine and a Vaccine Testing Center immunologist, Sam Scarpino, Ph.D., former assistant professor of mathematics and statistics, Donna Rizzo, Ph.D., professor of engineering, and John Hanley, Ph.D., a postdoctoral associate in engineering, have been awarded the inaugural UVM Biomedical Engineering Program Pilot Research Program grant for their project, titled “Integrating omics and clinical data to study dengue infection.”

i-TREP – a University of Vermont-based biomedical entrepreneurship training program – is sponsoring an intensive summer course that will take place at the Larner College of Medicine at UVM June 16 to 23, 2017.

Larner College of Medicine Research Laureate and University Distinguished Professor of Medicine Ralph Budd, M.D., will present the inaugural Research Laureate Lecture on May 9, 2017 at 4:30 p.m. in the Sullivan Classroom in the Medical Education Center. His talk is titled “The El Greco Lesson: 33 Years of Thinking Lupus.”

The National Institutes of Health Center for Scientific Review has announced that internationally renowned immunobiologist Mercedes Rincon, Ph.D., University of Vermont professor of medicine, has been appointed chairperson of the Cellular and Molecular Immunology-A Study Section, Center for Scientific Review, the portal for National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant applications. She is serving a one-year term from July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017.