The World Vaccine Congress Europe will be held this upcoming Monday October 19th - Wednesday October 21st in Amsterdam! 🇳🇱 We want to take this opportunity to highlight the members of the Precision Vaccine Program and collaborators who will present at the conference. If attending, come stop by our exhibition table and join us in supporting our panelists and presenters. We hope to see you there! 🌟💉 #WVCEU #WorldVaccineCongress #VaccineInnovation #VaccineSafety #TrainedImmunity #Adjuvants #RSV

Most vaccines are developed for the average adult. But the people at greatest risk of infection, including newborns, infants, and older adults, aren't average adults. Much of the currently available pre-clinical and clinical trial data that inform vaccine development are from human adults or animal models. Given that populations at the greatest risk of infection include individuals at the extremes of age, such as newborns, infants, and older adults, there is a need for in-depth studies of vaccine responses in these age groups to ensure safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy. In a new Current Opinion in Virology review, Sanya Thomas, Simon van Haren, and @levy_o argue that testing vaccines and adjuvant formulations in pre-clinical in vitro models using population-specific human cells would better predict vaccine responses in the people they are intended to protect. Standardization amidst biological variability remains an important challenge. Integrating population-specific immunological mechanisms into vaccine development early in the process could help create next-generation safe and effective vaccines tailored for highly vulnerable populations. Read it: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4222… #NAMs #NewApproachMethodologies #NonAnimalMethods #HumanRelevantScience #VaccineSafety

New research in Cell Reports Medicine! How does a newborn’s immune system change during the first 48 hours of life? Our team profiled 324 plasma proteins, cytokines, and chemokines across 906 samples from 679 healthy Gambian newborns, which enabled us to assemble ontogenetic trajectories for the first 48 hours of life at a bi-hourly resolution. The key findings could be confirmed in an independent cohort collected in Papua New Guinea. We found that: • The first 48 hours reveal distinct phases of immune development, highlighting the dynamic nature of early-life immune ontogeny that are easily missed when sampling only by day of life. • The patterns were robust across the hundreds of newborns and enabled the construction of a neonatal immuno-molecular clock, which identified normative processes during the earliest postnatal period. • The immune development showed distinct sex-dependent differences, with the newborn girls’ immunological age being on average four hours advanced as compared to boys. These findings highlight just how rapidly the neonatal immune system changes immediately after birth and why high-resolution sampling matters for understanding early-life immunity. Congratulations to Tue Bjerg Bennike, Hanno Steen, Kinga Smolen, Tobias Kollmann, @levy_o, Beate Kampm, William Pomat, and the entire EPIC-HIPC Consortium. Most importantly, thank you to all the participating families who made this work possible. 📄 Read the paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrm.2026.… @BostonChildrens, @harvardmed, @aalborg_uni #PrecisionVaccines #NeonatalImmunology #SystemsImmunology #Proteomics #GlobalHealth

PVP Director, @levy_o, will be speaking at the World Vaccine Congress Europe this October in Amsterdam! 🌍 Join us at WVC EU to meet global leaders across the vaccine value chain and discuss the latest innovations shaping the future of global health! 💉 Use this code SBSPK25 to get an extra 25% off your ticket! i.snoball.it/p/ABD3QRfK/l/12 #WVCEU #WorldVaccineCongress #VaccineInnovation #Speaker #Amsterdam @vaccinenation

PVP Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Utsa Bhaduri has been featured by @harvardmed as part of its “A Day in the Life of a Postdoc” series for National Postdoc Appreciation Week 🎉 The feature highlights Utsa’s work as a postdoctoral fellow in the Precision Vaccines Program, along with his broader activities across Harvard, from his public policy role with the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) and his Mini-MBA studies to leading entrepreneurship initiatives with the Harvard Medical Postdoc Association. 🌏 A wonderful recognition of the many dimensions of postdoctoral life, from advancing science in the lab to engaging with the broader academic, policy, and innovation ecosystem. instagram.com/reels/Ddj0CQKJ… #NationalPostDocAppreciationWeek #HarvardMedicalSchool

PVP Director, @levy_o will be speaking at the World Vaccine Congress Europe this October in Amsterdam! 🌍 Join us at WVC EU to meet global leaders across the vaccine value chain and discuss the latest innovations shaping the future of global health! 💉 Use this code SBSPK25 to get an extra 25% off your ticket! i.snoball.it/p/ABD3QRfK/l/12 #WVCEU #WorldVaccineCongress #VaccineInnovation #Speaker #Amsterdam @vaccinenation

Members of the PVP, including @levy_o, Utsa Bhaduri, Annmarie Hoch, and Donato Amodio, presented during the #IDEAL annual meeting, hosted at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. @JohnsHopkinsSPH @NIH #NIAID

Welcome to the Summer 2026 Edition of the Precision Vaccines Program Research Administration Corner by Geraldine Pierre JD, MS! ☀️ In this edition, we highlight a groundbreaking vaccine safety project funded by the for Coalition Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (@CEPIvaccines) and conducted by the International Network of Special Immunization Services (#INSIS) group. This collaborative international project is led by Dr. Karina Top at University of Alberta and includes Boston Children's Hospital PVP director Ofer Levy, MD PhD, PVP Data Management & Analysis Core Lead Joann Diray Arce, PhD, and PVP Clinical Lead Asimenia Angelidou MD, PhD. The project employs combined clinical and systems biology and human in vitro modeling “adversomics” approach to investigate rare vaccine-associated Adverse Events of Special Interest (AESIs), such as those associated with COVID vaccines. The goal of this work is to identify molecular signatures and pathways associated with vaccine-associated AESIs that can be monitored in preclinical and clinical trials. These insights can help estimate the potential of new candidate vaccines to cause AESIs prior to administration and inform regulatory assessment and immunization recommendations. Adversomics employs powerful technologies to comprehensively characterize the molecular makeup of a given sample, including DNA, RNAs, proteins, and metabolites. A key advantage of this approach is that it does not rely on assumptions about which biological mechanisms may be relevant but rather casts a broad and comprehensive net to define molecular pathways associated with AESIs. Together these approaches will enable characterization of the clinical spectrum, risk factors, and underlying mechanisms of post-vaccination AESIs. To date, the INSIS project has made significant progress during the work package (WP)1 and WP2 phases, including development and implementation of harmonized standard operating procedures (SOPs) for sample collection, processing, and data entry across the participating sites. Sample aliquoting is currently underway for specimens from 3 of the sites. Sample shipments have also been successfully coordinated and completed from 11 sites, with shipments from 2 additional sites expected in the coming months. The PVP scientific and administrative teams are partnering with the University of Alberta to complete the WP1 and WP2 phases while simultaneously preparing reports for the WP3-funded phase of the INSIS project. Looking ahead, the INSIS project teams are focused on distributing the collected samples to core laboratories, conducting systems biology assays, and integrating clinical, immunologic and systems biology data to identify molecular signatures and pathways associated with AESIs. This work will provide new insights into mechanisms underlying AESIs and inform development of even safer vaccines while maintaining robust efficacy. #Adversomics #VaccineSafety #VaccineDevelopment #Covid19 #INSIS #CEPI

This October, James Robitaille of @BostonChildrens will run across Massachusetts in support of the Substance Abuse Program Fund within the #AddictionMedicine Program at Boston Children’s Hospital. Use the link below to learn more and support the cause: ow.ly/UUVo50ZFjVB

Dr. Ofer Levy (@levy_o) and Dr. Joann Diray-Arce (@JoannDArce) of @BostonChildrens and the @PrecVaccines program were interviewed in a recent Earth.com article highlighting research into how #COVID-19 can reactivate dormant viruses and what this may mean for #longCOVID. Read the full article: “COVID can reawaken viruses that have been hiding for years.” earth.com/science/covid-wake…

Out Now in @Nature Led by @DellMedSchool along with @PrecVaccines and 13 biomedical research institutions across the United States, the #IMPACC group have discovered that #COVID19 reactivates multiple dormant viruses in hospitalized patients correlating with development of acute and #longCOVID. These findings expand understanding of chronically infecting viruses and could inform development of strategies to combat their reactivation. @MelamedEsther @colemag9, Jing Chen, Annmarie Hoch, Al Ozonoff, @KingaSmolen, @levy_o, Hanno Steen, @JoannDArce #Coronavirus Read full article here: nature.com/articles/s41586-0…

On June 22, 2026, Dr. Ofer Levy presented his TEDxBoston talk, "Remember The Future: Building on an American Pediatric Tradition", as part of "Visions of the Next 250"— a series of talks designed to serve as living digital time capsules that can inform and inspire the next 250 years. Watch the talk here: youtube.com/watch?v=eqQaz0pG…

Shout out to Dr. Colleen Sedney who presented her human in vitro modeling of intranasal vaccine responses poster at the International Congress for Mucosal Immunology in Montreal last week! #ICMI2026 #MucosalImmunology #Immunology #SMI @socmucimm

Out in @bloodrci article led by Abhinav Checkervarty, with our own @PrecVaccines co-authors: Asimenia Angelidou, @JoannDArce, Kerry McEnaney, @KingaSmolen and @levy_o. 720 Gambian neonates, enrolled in the EPIC-HIPC study, were genotyped to identify those with Sickle Cell trait (SCT). We found that newborns with SCT demonstrated distinct molecular signatures compared to those without and observed enrichment of pathways associated with Sickle Cell disease. #SickleCell, #SickleCellDisease @PROOFCentre @HLIStPauls Read the full article here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4236…

New review published in @NatImmunol re #IDEALpediatrics (Immune Development in Early Life) research group including Paolo Palma @bambinogesu, @donnafarber3, @LizaKonnikova at @YalePediatrics and @levy_o at @BostonChildrens identifies the first 1,000 days as a decisive window for immune development and for future risk of infections, #asthma, #allergy, and low #vaccine responses. This impactful review highlights the #NIH #NIAID-supported #IDEALpediatrics collaboration between @bambinogesu and @bostonchildrens Read full review here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4217…

📣 We're hiring! The @PrecVaccines is hiring for a Program Coordinator I to support our Program Director with calendar coordination, scheduling, and more. 🗓️ Learn more and apply here: jobs.bostonchildrens.org/job… #Administrative #Hiring #Vaccines

Happy #WorldVaccineDay! All over the world, research scientists work each day to improve and develop vaccines. 💉 Let's celebrate vaccine research together this #WorldVaccineDay! 🔬 #2026 #Vaccines #Science