Vaccine Research Center (VRC)

Office of the Director

Acting Director's Profile

John R. Mascola, M.D.

Dr. John R. Mascola

John R. Mascola, M.D., serves as acting director of the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center (VRC). The VRC was established in 1999 by President Clinton to assist in the development of an HIV vaccine.

Dr. Mascola provides overall direction and scientific leadership for the VRC’s basic, clinical, and translational research activities. He also guides development of novel vaccine strategies against HIV and other emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, including Ebola and Marburg hemorrhagic fevers and influenza. The efforts of the VRC are directed toward the following:

• Vaccine research and development, including the definition of immune mechanisms that may protect against HIV infection
• Influence of cellular and humoral immune responses on HIV neutralization
• Conception, design, and preparation of vaccine candidates for HIV and other infectious diseases
• Initiation of clinical trials to test in people the safety and immune response of vaccine candidates

As head of the VRC Humoral Immunology Section, Dr. Mascola also conducts basic and applied research on antibody-mediated protective immune responses against HIV through studies of both the plasma antibody compartment and the B-cell compartment. The goal of these studies is to elucidate mechanisms of virus neutralization and the epitopes targeted by neutralizing antibodies and to translate this information into novel strategies for vaccine design. He also holds concurrent appointments as an adjunct professor of medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and as a consulting physician in the division of infectious diseases at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Dr. Mascola joined the VRC in October 2000 as deputy director. His distinguished career in infectious diseases and retrovirus research has provided important information about HIV, specifically in the areas of antibody-mediated protection from HIV and mucosal HIV transmission. As deputy director, Dr. Mascola worked closely with the director in planning VRC strategic goals and research agenda. He also represented the VRC at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) planning and advisory meetings and at national and international conferences and workshops.

Prior to joining the VRC, Dr. Mascola participated on the NIAID AIDS Research Review Committee and NIH Vaccine Study Section and served as a research scientist in the division of retrovirology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Rockville, Maryland, where he was head of the department of HIV prevention research.

After graduating magna cum laude from Tufts University and earning his medical degree at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Dr. Mascola completed a residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in infectious diseases at the National Naval Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in retroviral diseases at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. Dr. Mascola is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He has been elected to the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.