BIRCH team
COVID-19 vaccine COVID-19 variants Wes Van Voorhis UW Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness
January 29, 2021 | Health News

United World Antiviral Research Network (UWARN) Partners Collaborate to Expand Understanding of New COVID Variants, Key to Future Vaccine Development

The recent recognition of new COVID-19 variants, first detected in South Africa (B.1.135, 501Y.V2), Brazil (P1) and the UK (B.1.1.7) – and the variants’ potential to disrupt vaccine effectiveness and protection from prior COVID-19 infection – is an urgent concern that UWARN partners around the globe are collaborating on to understand.

Photo of mycobacterium tuberculosis protein structure
Infectious Disease Center for Infectious Disease Research Wes Van Voorhis School of Medicine
June 08, 2017 | Department News

HS Newsbeat: Major Milestone Reached Against Infectious Diseases

By Bobbi Nodell

A collaboration involving UW Medicine researchers reached a major milestone toward helping investigators create drug therapies and vaccines for some of the world’s major infectious diseases.

The group solved 1,000 protein structures from more than 70 infectious disease organisms.

Understanding protein structures -- the basis of drug therapy and vaccines -- is key to understanding how infectious diseases are different from us, said Dr. Wesley Van Voorhis, head of the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the UW School of Medicine.