Laureate Lecture Series

Rino Rappuoli, PhD, Global Head of Vaccines Research at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, will be the next speaker in the 2013 Laureate Lecture Series, a yearlong program highlighting some of the top biomedical researchers in their fields. Dr. Rappuoli’s lecture, “Vaccines for a 21st Century Society,” will take place at noon on Thursday, June 20, in Lecture Room 6, Scaife Hall.

Dr. Rappuoli is known worldwide for his work in vaccines and immunology. He has spent his career developing vaccines for pertussis, meningitis, and Helicobacter pylori and is jointly responsible for engineering the carrier protein used in many conjugate vaccines. He is credited with launching the field of reverse vaccinology, in which the genome of a pathogen is screened using bioinformatics tools to identify likely vaccine targets, which then undergo normal wet lab testing for immune responses.

Dr. Rappuoli earned his undergraduate degree in biological sciences at the University of Siena, Italy. In 1975, at the age of 23, he learned firsthand about the power of the latest techniques in molecular biology through a summer research position at Washington University in St. Louis, where he worked on bacterial mutagenesis. Afterward, he earned a PhD in biological sciences from the University of Siena for his nuclear magnetic resonance studies of proteins and tissue membranes.

Dr. Rappuoli served as a visiting scientist at the Rockefeller University in New York and at Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 1981, he returned to Italy to set up his own laboratory as a staff scientist at the Sclavo Research Center in Siena. There, he and colleagues developed a novel pertussis vaccine. Rather than deactivating bacterial toxin with formaldehyde, they cloned and sequenced the gene for pertussis toxin, then used site-directed mutagenesis to alter the amino acids in the active site of the toxin. The resulting nontoxic molecule made a potent vaccine—the first of a new generation of acellular vaccines to replace traditional, whole-cell killed-bacterial vaccines.

In 1992, he joined the biotechnology company Chiron Corporation, ultimately rising to the position of chief scientific officer and vice president for vaccines research. In 2006, he became global head of vaccines research at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, in Siena. Currently, Dr. Rappuoli is actively involved in the research and development of further vaccines against meningococcal disease and avian and pandemic influenza. He is also project coordinator of Aditec (Advanced Immunization Technologies), a multinational, collaborative research program funded by the European Union in 2011 to accelerate the development of novel and powerful immunization technologies for the next generation of human vaccines.

Dr. Rappuoli is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization. He has been honored with the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1991), the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal (2009), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Institute of Human Virology (2010), the Excellence Award from the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (2011), and many other awards.

		Rino Rappuoli, PhD Global Head of Vaccines Research Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Vaccines for a 21st Century Society Thursday, June 20, 12 Noon Scaife Hall, Lecture Room 6 Rino Rappuoli, PhD, Global Head of Vaccines Research at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, will be the next speaker in the 2013 Laureate Lecture Series, a yearlong program highlighting some of the top biomedical researchers in their fields. Dr. Rappuoli’s lecture, “Vaccines for a 21st Century Society,” will take place at noon on Thursday, June 20, in Lecture Room 6, Scaife Hall. Dr. Rappuoli is known worldwide for his work in vaccines and immunology. He has spent his career developing vaccines for pertussis, meningitis, and Helicobacter pylori and is jointly responsible for engineering the carrier protein used in many conjugate vaccines. He is credited with launching the field of reverse vaccinology, in which the genome of a pathogen is screened using bioinformatics tools to identify likely vaccine targets, which then undergo normal wet lab testing for immune responses. Dr. Rappuoli earned his undergraduate degree in biological sciences at the University of Siena, Italy. In 1975, at the age of 23, he learned firsthand about the power of the latest techniques in molecular biology through a summer research position at Washington University in St. Louis, where he worked on bacterial mutagenesis. Afterward, he earned a PhD in biological sciences from the University of Siena for his nuclear magnetic resonance studies of proteins and tissue membranes. Dr. Rappuoli served as a visiting scientist at the Rockefeller University in New York and at Harvard Medical School in Boston. In 1981, he returned to Italy to set up his own laboratory as a staff scientist at the Sclavo Research Center in Siena. There, he and colleagues developed a novel pertussis vaccine. Rather than deactivating bacterial toxin with formaldehyde, they cloned and sequenced the gene for pertussis toxin, then used site-directed mutagenesis to alter the amino acids in the active site of the toxin. The resulting nontoxic molecule made a potent vaccine—the first of a new generation of acellular vaccines to replace traditional, whole-cell killed-bacterial vaccines. In 1992, he joined the biotechnology company Chiron Corporation, ultimately rising to the position of chief scientific officer and vice president for vaccines research. In 2006, he became global head of vaccines research at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, in Siena. Currently, Dr. Rappuoli is actively involved in the research and development of further vaccines against meningococcal disease and avian and pandemic influenza. He is also project coordinator of Aditec (Advanced Immunization Technologies), a multinational, collaborative research program funded by the European Union in 2011 to accelerate the development of novel and powerful immunization technologies for the next generation of human vaccines. Dr. Rappuoli is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization. He has been honored with the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize (1991), the Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal (2009), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Institute of Human Virology (2010), the Excellence Award from the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (2011), and many other awards.