Center for Vaccine Research and Pandemic Preparedness

The Center for Vaccine Research and Pandemic Preparedness at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai integrates basic and translational research to accelerate the prevention, treatment, and cure of viral infections. Led by co-directors Florian Krammer, PhD, and Viviana A. Simon, MD, PhD, the Center leverages modern technologies to conduct efficient, inclusive clinical research, and understand how specific vaccines work and how to use this knowledge to guide the development of new vaccines or therapeutics.

The Center partners with the Mount Sinai Health System to optimize patient access to studies, collaborates with clinical experts, and interfaces with regulatory offices to position Mount Sinai as a leader in evaluating therapeutics and vaccines in human trials. Through synergy between research and clinical operations, the Center for Vaccine Research and Pandemic Preparedness aims to rapidly translate cutting-edge virology discoveries into real-world impact. This accelerates the development of life-saving vaccines and pandemic preparedness.

The Center leverages the successful infrastructures of the Personalized Virology Initiative, which has provided a regulatory framework for conducting observational clinical studies that have pioneered protein engineering and serology research since 2016. Through these studies, the Initiative delivers qualitative and quantitative measurements of immune responses to infections and vaccinations. Building on these capabilities, the Center optimizes and implements current and future knowledge to generate diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics.