Improving Global Health

VTC Researcher in Bangladesh holding baby with motherFaculty researchers at the Vaccine Testing Center (VTC) study human vaccines with the goal of understanding and preventing infectious diseases around the globe. The VTC is in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, which bridges both the University of Vermont College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Larner College of Medicine.

Our team is particularly interested in new vaccines with the potential to prevent or control infectious diseases in developing countries. We are a diverse team of clinicians, study coordinators, scientists, and laboratory personnel. Volunteers are critical to our work and our human research studies are designed and performed with rigorous oversight and safety.

Research 

Lab Tech looking in microscope

The Vaccine Testing Center's team of scientists and researchers are committed to solving the world’s most pressing infectious disease challenges. Our research spans the translational spectrum from lab-based human immunology to domestic clinical trials to large-scale international field research. Together with national and international collaborators and local volunteers, we help develop vaccines to address global infectious diseases, including rotavirus, cholera, dengue and other flaviviruses. More VTC research.

Volunteer

Cute Mosquitos Ask for Your Help

Want to help your global community? 

We are currently screening healthy adults aged 18–50 for upcoming vaccine research for mosquito-borne viruses. 

To learn more, contact us about this or ongoing pre-study screenings: 

Volunteers are a critical part of our research and their contributions save lives around the world every day. Thank you! 

News

Dr. Sean Diehl & Huy Tu

Investigators Sean Diehl, Ph.D., Huy Tu, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Cellular and Molecular Biomedical Sciences program, and colleagues in the University of Vermont's Vaccine Testing Center and Center for Translational Global Infectious Disease Research (TGIR) have uncovered details of the human immune response to infection with dengue - a close "cousin" of the Zika virus - which 40 percent of the global population is at risk for contracting. Study findings, reported recently in the Lancet’s open-access journal EBioMedicine, illustrate new critical information that could provide much-needed help to evaluating dengue vaccine formulations and assist with advancing safe and efficacious candidate vaccines to help combat the most important mosquito-borne viral infection in our time.

Learn more about the study or read the full paper.

Donations to the Vaccine Testing Center support groundbreaking research and clinical trials that improve people's quality of life and overall global health. More

TGIR COBRE

Benjamin Lee MD Headshot

The Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine are pleased to announce the receipt of a $12.3 million award for a new Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) called the “Translational Global Infectious Disease Research Center” (TGIR). The TGIR will join together two traditionally distinct groups of scientists to develop innovative approaches to prevent and control infectious disease.

Learn more or go to the TGIR website.

VTC Showcase

Podcast feature: Flu season - How the flu turns deadly (and how to protect yourself)

Benjamin Lee, MD, a researcher at the Vaccine Testing Center at the University of Vermont and pediatric infectious diseases physician at the UVM Children's Hospital talks about what makes the flu deadly, why the flu vaccine is important, and how to stay healthy. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.

Podcast feature: How we improve global health

MMG/Vaccine Testing Center Faculty Scientist Ross Colgate, PhD, MPH, recently met with UVMMC to talk about the global importance of the work we do and how it is changing lives for the better, especially for the world's children. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.