Message from the ISV President (ISV President, 2026 and 2027)
I am delighted to serve as your 2026 and 2027 President of the International Society for Vaccines (ISV). Our Society brings together colleagues from all over the world and aims to encourage, establish, and promote the development and use of vaccines and immuno-therapeutics to prevent and control infectious and non-infectious diseases in animals and humans.
I would like to begin by thanking our outgoing 2024 and 2025 Officers, Denise Doolan (Past President), Lenny Moise (Treasurer) and Joon Haeng Rhee (Secretary). It has been a pleasure serving with you on the executive committee. I want to thank Linda Klavinskis (now Past President) for doing a splendid job leading our Society during the past two years together with Jeffrey Ulmer, who served as our Vice Board Chair and who will return as Treasurer. In addition, I would like to welcome our new Officers: Indresh Srivastava (President-elect), and Lakshmi Krishnan (General Secretary).
I am also grateful for all the energy, insights and work done by our 2024 and 2025 departing Board Members, Neil Almond, Shan Lu, Ed Rybicki and David Weiner, most of whom will remain actively involved in our committees. I am looking forward to working with newly elected members Alejandra Capozzo, Branka Grubor-Bauk, Lars Frelin, Ab Osterhaus, and Baik-Lin Seong, in addition to our continuing Board members Annaliesa Anderson, Danilo Casimiro, Denise Doolan, Margaret Liu, and Michael Schotsaert.
Besides the Executive Committee and Board, we are fortunate to have an amazing group of talented highly motivated individuals working alongside ISV Officers and Board Members in various committees to fulfill our mission.
I am looking forward to working with our talented administrative staff Ted Gibson and Anna Taliadoros, who are essential in supporting all our activities.
Our mission is timely as vaccines have been and continue to be the most cost-effective way to control many diseases. It is important to be open-minded and improve our understanding and response to underlying concerns from the public, some of whom are hesitant or somewhat afraid of vaccines. I am hopeful that together we will be able to create awareness for the important work we are doing and inform the public of vaccine benefits.
I am looking forward to an exciting year where we will continue with many activities inspired by our members, partners and sponsors. A few of which are highlighted below:
Three virtual educational webinar series: (Talks are generally posted on ISV -YouTube channel 1 week following the live presentation)
- The seminar series organized by former ISV President Ted Ross generally take place on the 2nd Wednesday of each month. On January 15th our President-elect Indresh Srivastava will be speaking about the future of thermostable vaccines.
- Our monthly next generation vaccinologists webinar organized by the NextGen Committee generally takes place on the first Thursday of the month and features two speakers in different stages of their career.
- The Vaccine Industry Committee will continue to host its 2-hour quarterly mini-symposia featuring hot topics. The first, on January 22nd, will be a mini symposium organized by Dr. Nnenna Chime (Sanofi) covering human MetaPneumoVirus developments. Nnenna has been able to organize an excellent panel of speakers: Professor Dr. Ab Osterhaus, Dr. Michael Kishko and Dr. Stefan Gravenstein.
Preparations for our next in-person Annual Congress taking place in Antwerp, Belgium (October 12 -14) are in full swing. Conference chair Michael Schotsaert and co-chairs Lakshmi Krishnan and Isabel Leroux-Roels are working hard to put together an exciting program.
We will continue to update our community on our activities through our bi-monthly Newsletter edited by Ebony Gary that will feature a regular update by me, elected papers of the previous months, spotlight profile(s), committee update(s), congress update, and selected topics of interest.
I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to all our sponsors, partners, donors! Your generous support enables us to sustain our annual activities and continue connecting vaccinologists at all stages of their careers with the latest developments in vaccinology.
If you have any questions, suggestions or concerns please do not hesitate to reach out to me at ManonCox@isv-online.org.
Manon MJ Cox, PhD, MBA
