Emory Report

Feb. 22, 1999

 Volume 51, No. 21

A little food, a little wine, a little talk about vaccines

When leaders from the new Emory-Atlanta Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) called a meeting recently to talk about hosting a new group for area investigators interested in all types of vaccine research, they knew the idea would be popular, but they had no idea how popular.

Maybe it simply required adding the word "dinner" to the name of their club, or perhaps it was the power of the Internet, but the new Vaccine Dinner Club quickly attracted a list of 246 registered members from all over Atlanta and as far away as Athens.

On a rainy inaugural evening in January, 172 of those members showed up at Emory to sip wine, eat a light dinner and hear a talk by Rafi Ahmed, director of Emory's new Vaccine Center and the Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Vaccine Research.

"I don't know of any other city in the world where there are more people interested in vaccine issues than Atlanta," said Mark Feinberg, associate director of Emory's CFAR. "When you combine Emory, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the University of Georgia, institutions like CARE, the childhood vaccine initiative based in Atlanta and The Carter Center, it gives us a background and a combination of expertise that can make our work at Emory's vaccine center much more successful."

A new three-story building housing the Emory Vaccine Center is scheduled to open late this spring on the Yerkes Center's main grounds. Emory investigators already are involved in multiple research projects to develop safe and effective vaccines for HIV, malaria, flu, measles and tuberculosis.

The Vaccine Dinner Club is sponsored by the Vaccine Center, the CDC, the CFAR and the University of Georgia. Meetings are held on the first Wednesday evening of each month and include a casual dinner and a talk by local, national and international vaccine researchers. The location changes each month. Free registration and information can be found at the club's web site: <http:// www.sph.emory.edu/ CFAR/ VACCINE>.

--Holly Korschun



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