Stanley A. Plotkin, MD

Dr. Stanley A. Plotkin is Emeritus Professor of the University of Pennsylvania, Adjunct Professor of the Johns Hopkins University and Executive Advisor to Sanofi Pasteur. Until 1991, he was Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania, Professor of Virology at the Wistar Institute and at the same time, Director of Infectious Diseases and Senior Physician at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  In 1991, Dr. Plotkin left the University to join the vaccine manufacturer, Pasteur-Mérieux-Connaught, where for seven years he was Medical and Scientific Director, based at Marnes-la-Coquette, outside Paris.  The same company is now named Sanofi Pasteur, to which he is now Executive Advisor to the CEO.

Dr. Plotkin’s career included internship at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital, residency in pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Hospital for Sick Children in London and three years in the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the Centers for Disease Control of the US Public Health Service.

He has been chairman of the Infectious Diseases Committee and the AIDS Task Force of the American Academy of Pediatrics, liaison member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and Chairman of the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Research Committee of the National Institutes of Health.  Dr. Plotkin received the Bruce Medal in Preventive Medicine of the American College of Physicians, the Distinguished Physician Award of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, the Clinical Virology Award of the Pan American Society for Clinical Virology, the Richard Day Master Teacher in Pediatrics Award of the Alumni Association of New York Downstate Medical College, and the Marshall Award of the European Society for Pediatric Infectious Diseases.  In June 1998, he received the French Legion of Honor Medal; in June 2001, the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, in September 2006 the gold medal from the same hospital; the Sabin Gold Medal in May 2002, in September 2004 the Fleming (Bristol) Award of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and in May 2007 the medal of the Fondation Mérieux.

Dr. Plotkin was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2005 and to the French Academy of Medicine in 2007. Dr. Plotkin holds honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Rouen (France). Named lectures in his honor have been established at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting and at the International Advanced Vaccinology Course in Annecy, France.   His bibliography includes over 600 articles and he has edited several books including the standard textbook Vaccine.  He developed the rubella vaccine now in standard use throughout the world, is co-developer of the newly licensed pentavalent rotavirus vaccine, and has worked extensively on the development and application of other vaccines including polio, rabies, varicella, and cytomegalovirus.

Gregory A. Poland, MD

Dr. Gregory Poland is the Director of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group – a state-of-the-art research group and laboratory that investigates issues surrounding vaccine response and novel vaccines important to public health. Dr. Poland is the Mary Lowell Leary Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases and Molecular Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, the Associate Chair for Research for the Department of Medicine, the Director of the Immunization Clinic and the Director of the Program in Translational Immunovirology and Biodefense at Mayo Clinic. He also serves as the American Editor for the journal “Vaccine.”

Dr. Poland was awarded the Hsu prize in International Infectious Disease Epidemiology in 2007 by the University of Iowa, and the Charles Merieux Lifetime Achievement Award in Vaccinology from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases in May 2006.  In March 2005, Dr. Poland was elected as the President of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board.   He was appointed as the Mary Lowell Leary Professor in Medicine (the highest academic distinction for a faculty member) by Mayo Clinic’s Board of Trustees in 2004.   In May 2003, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.   Since 2004, Dr. Poland has also served on the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Taskforce on Pandemic Influenza.   In 2000, he was appointed as the American Editor for the prestigious medical journal Vaccine.   In 1998, he received a joint award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Care Financing Administration for his contribution to increasing adult immunization rates in the U.S. which was awarded by the Surgeon General of the United States.   Also of major significance, in 1997, he was honored as the “Outstanding Clinical Investigator of the Year” by Mayo Clinic.

Additionally, Dr. Poland participates on many national and academic review committees and actively peer-reviews journal articles for over 26 different publications such as The Lancet, Annals of Internal Medicine and New England Journal of Medicine.  A prolific writer, Dr. Poland has published over 230 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters.

Dr. Poland received his medical degree from the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Illinois, and completed his residency and advanced post-graduate work at the University of Minnesota/Abbott-Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis, MN.

Guus F. Rimmelzwaan, PhD

Dr. Guus F. Rimmelzwaan is associate professor at the Department of Virology of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, where he works since 1994 as workgroup leader of the influenza immunology group. His main research interests are influenza virus vaccine development, immunologic defense mechanisms against influenza virus infections, virus-host interactions and influenza virus epidemiology.

Dr. Rimmelzwaan was trained as a biologist at the Free University of Amsterdam. He obtained his PhD in 1990 on the thesis entitled “ Canine parvovirus infection: Novel approaches to diagnosis and immune prophylaxis” at the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection, Bilthoven, The Netherlands, where he also worked as post-doctoral fellow on FIV vaccine development between 1990 and 1992. Between 1992 and 1994 he worked as a post-doctoral fellow in the field of HIV-1 vaccine development at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, MD, USA.

Dr. Rimmelzwaan (co)-authored >160 articles and contributed to various books related to vaccinology. He organized courses in virology for PhD students, postdoctoral fellows and clinical microbiologists and a Practical Training Course in Influenza. He also participated as expert in various national committees on the prevention of influenza.