VIRAC

The University of Michigan Vaccine Informatics and Resource Advisory Committee (VIRAC)

Mission: To promote application of informatics technologies for vaccine research and create a centralized vaccine research data resource.

Members: This committee currently includes many well-known professors in the University of Michigan:

• Dr. Brian Athey, Center for Computation Medicine and Biology. Research interest: Integrative biomedical informatics, translational bioinformatics, and computational modeling.

• Dr. Lesley A. Colby, Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, Medical School. Research interest: Brucella vaccine research and laboratory animal assessment.

• Dr. Victor DiRita, Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine and Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical School. Research interest: Vibrio cholerae and Campylobacter jejuni pathogenesis.

• Dr. Janet R. Gilsdorf, Center for Molecular and Clinical Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases, Medical School; Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health. Research interest: pediatric infectious diseases, Haemophilus influenzae research.

• Dr. Phil Hanna, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical School. Research interest: Bacillus anthrax research.

• Dr. Yongqun "Oliver" He, Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and Center for Computational Medicine and Biology (CCMB). Research interest: Brucella pathogenesis and bioinformatics.

• Dr. Michael Imperiale, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical School. Research interest: small DNA tumor viruses.

• Dr. James Koopman, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health. Research interest: infectious disease transmission system modeling.

• Dr. Harry Mobley, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical School. Research interest: pathogenesis of bacteria including E. coli, Proteus mirabilis, Helicobacter pylori.

• Dr. Gil Omenn, Center for Computational Medicine and Biology, Department of Human Genetics. Research interest: Human genomics, proteomics, and cancer research.

• Dr. Steve Qin, Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health. Research interest: statistical computing, Bayesian modeling.

• Dr. Howard Rush, Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, Medical School. Research interest: laboratory animal models of infectious diseases.

• Dr. David States, Center for Computational Medicine and Biology. Research interest: Gene expression regulation, data integration, and automated natural language processing.

• Dr. Zhenhua Yang, Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health. Research interest: Mycobacterium tuberculosis research.

More members are welcome. Please contact Dr. Oliver He for suggestions and comments. Thank you.