The Technology Corridor

Everyday on my way to work at the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, I drive by a sign that declares I-270 is the "Technology Corridor." For clarification, I-270 is the route that connects Northwest DC to the more suburban regions of the metro area, namely Bethesda and Rockville, where Aeras is located. In the past few weeks, I have gained more of an understanding of what this sign actually means.

Aeras, itself, is an excellent exemplar of the kind of technological activity that is taking place in this corner of our nation's capital. The organization, a product development partnership, collaborates with a broad range of other groups, including academic research intuitions, biotechnology firms, and pharmaceutical companies, to identify the best approaches to a new, and direly needed, TB vaccine (It is estimated that nearly 2 million people die from TB each year, and the current vaccine is widely regarded as ineffective in preventing against pulmonary TB in adults, which constitutes the vast majority of TB cases). Aeras is a unique organization because it has its own vaccine discovery, assessment, and manufacturing departments. At other PDPs, these services are provided by outside contractors. In the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to explore what goes on in the lab here--in particular, the types of immunological techniques, such as intracellular cytokine staining, that Aeras researchers use to complete their assessments of vaccine candidates. In the future, I look forward to learning more about Aeras' state-of-the art manufacturing facility, which has the capacity to produce over 200 million doses of a new TB preventive.

I also had the opportunity to join my P55 mentor, Dr. Philip Murphy, for lunch and a tour of his laboratory at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Visiting the NIH campus was an awe-inspiring experience. The campus, a beautiful former estate of the Wilson family, is large to enough to house 60 buildings, while retaining its green and park-like landscape. Dr. Murphy works in the largest building on the campus, the Clinical Research Center, which also happens to be the largest government building in the United States. The building has numerous laboratories and patient facilities, all to provide the most cutting-edge resources to clinical researchers and the patients enrolled in their trials. For example, Dr. Murphy showed me one particular laboratory that has the capability, using lasers, to remove individual cells from a sample of human tissue.

So far, I have had a great experience in Washington, learning about the important research that is taking place in this great city. I very much look forward to experiencing and learning more as the year progresses.