Precision Vaccines Program

PVP Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Utsa Bhaduri has been featured by Harvard Medical School as part of its “A Day in the Life of a Postdoc” series for National Postdoc Appreciation Week 🎉

The feature highlights Utsa’s work as a postdoctoral fellow in the Precision Vaccines Program, along with his broader activities across Harvard, from his public policy role with the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) and his Mini-MBA studies to leading entrepreneurship initiatives with the Harvard Medical Postdoc Association. 🌏

A wonderful recognition of the many dimensions of postdoctoral life, from advancing science in the lab to engaging with the broader academic, policy, and innovation ecosystem.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/Ddj0CQKJq7V/

Meet Utsa Bhaduri, a Harvard Medical School research fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital working with the Precision Vaccines Program. 🔬 He conducts basic and translational research to advance precision vaccines to better protect vulnerable populations such as infants, older adults, and immunocompromised populations. Beyond his postdoctoral research, he serves as a co-chair of the Harvard Medical Postdoc Association and a public policy fellow with the American Association of Immunologists. He recently completed the Mini-MBA program with the Harvard Griffin Graduate School or Arts and Sciences Business Club. Bhaduri is not only pursuing discovery science, but he is also learning how science reaches people through entrepreneurship, business, and public policy, which will prepare him to lead his own lab and make a meaningful impact. #HarvardMed #MyDayAtHarvardMed #PostdocLife

Dr Ofer Levy will be speaking at the World Vaccine Congress Europe this October in Amsterdam! 🌍

Join us at WVC EU to meet global leaders across the vaccine value chain and discuss the latest innovations shaping the future of global health! 💉

Use this code SBSPK25 to get an extra 25% off your ticket! https://i.snoball.it/p/ABD3QRfK/l/12

Members of the PVP and PVN, including Dr Ofer Levy, Utsa Bhaduri, Annmarie Hoch, and Donato Amodio, presented during the annual meeting, hosted at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr Joann Arce presented at the Vaccine Congress in Seville, Spain this week! Her presentation was titled, "A Systems Vaccinology Program in the Age of AI: Multi-Cohort, Cross-Lifespan Infrastructure for Predicting and Explaining Human Vaccine Responses," in the Systems Vaccinology and AI session!

Welcome to the Summer 2026 Edition of the Precision Vaccines Program Research Administration Corner by Geraldine Pierre Pierre JD, MS! ☀️

In this edition, we highlight a groundbreaking vaccine safety project funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations ( ) and conducted by the International Network of Special Immunization Services ( ) group.

This collaborative international project is led by Dr. Karina Top at University of Alberta and includes Boston Children's Hospital PVP director Ofer Levy, MD PhD, PVP Data Management & Analysis Core Lead Joann Diray Arce, PhD, and PVP Clinical Lead Asimenia Angelidou MD, PhD. The project employs combined clinical and systems biology and human in vitro modeling “adversomics” approach to investigate rare vaccine-associated Adverse Events of Special Interest (AESIs), such as those associated with COVID vaccines. The goal of this work is to identify molecular signatures and pathways associated with vaccine-associated AESIs that can be monitored in preclinical and clinical trials. These insights can help estimate the potential of new candidate vaccines to cause AESIs prior to administration and inform regulatory assessment and immunization recommendations.

Adversomics employs powerful technologies to comprehensively characterize the molecular makeup of a given sample, including DNA, RNAs, proteins, and metabolites. A key advantage of this approach is that it does not rely on assumptions about which biological mechanisms may be relevant but rather casts a broad and comprehensive net to define molecular pathways associated with AESIs. Together these approaches will enable characterization of the clinical spectrum, risk factors, and underlying mechanisms of post-vaccination AESIs.

To date, the INSIS project has made significant progress during the work package (WP)1 and WP2 phases, including development and implementation of harmonized standard operating procedures (SOPs) for sample collection, processing, and data entry across the participating sites. Sample aliquoting is currently underway for specimens from 3 of the sites. Sample shipments have also been successfully coordinated and completed from 11 sites, with shipments from 2 additional sites expected in the coming months.

The PVP scientific and administrative teams are partnering with the University of Alberta to complete the WP1 and WP2 phases while simultaneously preparing reports for the WP3-funded phase of the INSIS project.

Looking ahead, the INSIS project teams are focused on distributing the collected samples to core laboratories, conducting systems biology assays, and integrating clinical, immunologic and systems biology data to identify molecular signatures and pathways associated with AESIs. This work will provide new insights into mechanisms underlying AESIs and inform development of even safer vaccines while maintaining robust efficacy.

This October, James Robitaille of Boston Children’s Hospital will run across Massachusetts in support of the Substance Abuse Program Fund within the Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Use the link below to learn more and support the cause:
https://ow.ly/Y81H50ZFjVA

Dr. Ofer Levy and Dr. Joann Diray-Arce of Boston Children’s Hospital and the Precision Vaccines Program were interviewed in a recent Earth.com article highlighting research into how -19 can reactivate dormant viruses and what this may mean for .

In a cohort of 1,154 patients with severe COVID-19 across 20 U.S. hospitals, researchers identified 11 reactivated viruses, including -Barr Virus (EBV), (CMV), type-1 (HSV-1), and . Notably, anelloviruses, carried by ~90% of people, showed the strongest association with long COVID and long-term physical disability.

As Dr. Levy noted, “We need to learn more about Anelloviruses. Traditionally considered harmless, it is possible they may contribute to disease, and follow-up studies are needed to assess that possibility.”

Dr. Joann Diray-Arce highlighted the sheer size and impact of this funded study, “This is the largest and most comprehensive biomarker study of COVID-19, in which we followed more than one thousand patients, collected more than 200,000 samples, and generated more than 1 billion data points over the course of a year for this public resource.”

This dataset offers new insights into the biology of long COVID and viral reactivation which may help guide future diagnostics, treatments, and preventative therapeutics.

Read the full article: “COVID can reawaken viruses that have been hiding for years.” https://www.earth.com/science/covid-wakes-dormant-viruses/

Out Now in Nature Led by Dell Medical School - UT Austin along with Precision Vaccines Program and 13 biomedical research institutions across the United States, the group have discovered that reactivates multiple dormant viruses in hospitalized patients correlating with development of acute and . These findings expand understanding of chronically infecting viruses and could inform development of strategies to combat their reactivation. Esther Melamed, Cole Maguire, Jing Chen, Annmarie Hoch, Al Ozonoff, Kinga Smolen, Ofer Levy, Hanno Steen, Joann Diray-Arce
Read full article here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10740-z

On June 22, 2026, Dr. Ofer Levy presented his TEDxBoston talk, "Remember The Future: Building on an American Pediatric Tradition", as part of "Visions of the Next 250"— a series of talks designed to serve as living digital time capsules that can inform and inspire the next 250 years.

Watch the talk here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqQaz0pGPgA

Shout out to Dr. Colleen Sedney who presented her human in vitro modeling of intranasal vaccine responses poster at the International Congress for Mucosal Immunology in Montreal last week!
Society for Mucosal Immunology (SMI)