Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Wistar Institute Vaccine Center?
The Wistar Institute Vaccine Center is a multidisciplinary, collaborative research effort focused on developing new or more effective vaccines for some of the most dangerous and widespread diseases in the world, including HIV, influenza, rabies, hepatitis C, and malaria. Its goal is protecting the public health, in the United States and around the globe.

Who leads the Vaccine Center?
The Vaccine Center is a project of the Wistar Institute. Top Wistar scientists lead the effort, collaborating with leading Philadelphia-area organizations including the University of Pennsylvania, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Temple University, as well as other major research institutes around the country and the world. The center is guided by an external scientific advisory board composed of leading researchers and clinicians.

What is The Wistar Institute?
The Wistar Institute is a Philadelphia research institution with a distinguished history in vaccine development. An international leader in biomedical research, the Institute was founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the country. In addition to developing several important vaccines, Wistar has long held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute.

Where is the Vaccine Center located?
Vaccine Center faculty members maintain laboratories at The Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, where they can work together easily and effectively. The Vaccine Center also provides shared laboratory facilities at the Institute that support the work of all center researchers. These laboratories include viral vector and human immunology core facilities.

Why is the Vaccine Center important?
While vaccines have proved a tremendous boon to public health, there remain many serious illnesses for which no vaccines exist and others for which current vaccines could be more effective. In addition to developing new vaccines, the center strives to make more accessible the existing vaccines used widely in the United States and Europe that are less available in developing areas such as Africa and Asia, where preventable diseases claim hundreds of thousands of lives each year.

Who supports the Vaccine Center?
The distinguished Wistar researchers leading the Vaccine Center are supported by competitive federal and state funding, including a $10.1 million National Institutes of Health contract and a $4.2 million Pennsylvania Department of Health grant, both dedicated to developing a universal influenza vaccine. The center also will seek private philanthropic support to enable recruitment, program development, and facilities expansion.