PROVIDENCE, R.I. – October 21, 2015 — Even though Ebola has faded from the news headlines, newly emerging infectious diseases remain a challenge for vaccine developers. Completely new approaches to vaccines – as well as ancient ones — will be the focus of this year’s edition of the Vaccine Renaissance conference, hosted by the Institute for Immunology and Informatics (iCubed) at the University of Rhode Island’s Providence Campus.

The event will take place at Hotel Providence on November 4-6, 2015.

Now in its ninth year, the Vaccine Renaissance conference will focus on the crucial role vaccines play in human health and on the new methods to improve vaccine safety and efficacy. On the first day of the conference, international experts will describe their efforts to combat avian influenza, malaria and dengue fever. Off-target effects of vaccines including narcolepsy will be discussed on Day 2.

Featured speakers include Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, who will address HPV vaccine acceptance in the state, while Dr. Steven Hoffman, chief executive and scientific officer of biotech company Sanaria Inc., will describe clinical trials with his irradiated sporozoite vaccine.

Other speakers include Janet McNicholl of the Centers for Disease Control, Manon Cox of Protein Sciences Corp., and Mark Poznansky of Harvard Medical School.

Students will participate in a poster session, with the three best posters awarded prizes during the closing ceremony. Researchers will also participate in a computational vaccinology workshop, organized by iCubed and EpiVax, which will take place on the last day of the conference.

Conference Summary:

• Wednesday, Nov. 4 at Hotel Providence: sessions include malaria, dengue, and new approaches to influenza.

• Thursday, Nov. 5 at Hotel Providence: sessions include new ideas, animal health, new vaccines and immunology of vaccines.

• Friday, Nov. 6 at URI’s Providence Campus: iCubed and EpiVax will host a hands-on immunoinformatics toolkit training.

For a full agenda, visit www.immunome.org/conferences/9th-annual-renaissance-conference.

iCubed is a vaccine and immunology research center located at the University of Rhode Island’s Providence campus. Its mission is to improve human and animal health by applying the power of genomics and informatics to the design of better vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. It applies cutting-edge bioinformatics tools to accelerate the development of treatments and cures for a number of diseases such as hepatitis C, Lyme disease and dengue fever. The Institute aims to rapidly make these tools available to the global research community for the development of vaccines for other infectious diseases. iCubed also educates and trains the next generation of vaccine and immunology researchers.