Faculty

Anne De Groot
Adjunct Associate Professor (Research): Pediatrics
Phone: +1 401 272 2123
Phone 2: +1 401 952 4227
AnnieD@Brown.EDU
Read Anne De Groot's full Faculty Research Profile.

Anne De Groot is a nationally recognized expert in epitope-driven vaccines and has been working on TB, HIV (AIDS), HPV (Cervical Cancer) and more recently, smallpox and tularemia vaccines. She has emphasized the development of vaccines that are globally relevant and affordable to the persons at greatest risk of disease. She devotes 80% of her effort to directing the scientific affairs of EpiVax, a biotech company located in Providence, where she is CEO and Chief Scientific Officer.

Biography

Anne S. De Groot, M.D.
(Annie)

Associate Professor of Pediatrics (Adjunct), Brown University School of Medicine
Former Director, TB/HIV Research Lab (Brown University Center for Genomics and Proteomics)
Director, Institute for Immunology and Informatics, University of Rhode Island (Shephard Building, Biotechnology Program)
Founder, CEO & President, EpiVax, Inc.

Dr. De Groot earned degrees from Smith College (BA, 1978) and the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago (MD, 1983). She was trained in internal medicine at Tufts New England Medical Center (1986), and then went on to complete additional training in immunoinformatics and vaccine research under Jay Berzofsky at the National Institutes of Health (1989). Following her fellowship at the NIH, she returned to Tufts NEMC for clinical training in infectious disease (1991). She became board certified in Internal Medicine in 1986 and in Infectious Disease in 1992. In 1992, she joined the faculty of the Brown University Medical School, where she opened the TB/HIV Research Laboratory. She designed the epitope mapping algorithms at Brown University with the assistance of Gabe Meister, Bill Jesdale and Bill Martin. She founded EpiVax in 1998 and then licensed the EpiMatrix technology from Brown. She has been the CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors of EpiVax since 1998.

At EpiVax, Dr. De Groot devotes her primary efforts to developing the marketing, sales, science and business strategies at EpiVax. She spends one day per week at Brown University, where she is Associate Professor of Medicine and Community Health. She teaches vaccinology to undergraduate students at Brown University and University of Rhode Island (Spring Semester) and provides clinical care to patients at the Rhode Island TB clinic one afternoon per week. She is founder and Co-Chief editor of IDCR (an on-line electronic journal, established 1998) and founder and volunteer scientist of the GAIA Vaccine Foundation (501c3, 2002). In addition to her active research on vaccines for HIV, TB, Tularemia, Smallpox and EBV, she is a pioneer in the field of deimmunisation (of protein therapeutics). She and Bill Martin developed the DeFT approach to reengineering protein pharmaceuticals in 2002 and discovered "Epi-13" also known as "Tregitope", new molecules with potential for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, in 2007.

De Groot has received uninterrupted federal funding for her research activities through multiple NIH (K08, R21, R01, SBIR) and foundation grants since 1989. She was the recipient of a National Foundation for Infectious Diseases-Eli Lilly Award, two Rhode Island Foundation awards and a Commercial Innovation Award (from the Rhode Island Center for Cellular Medicine). In 2003 she was recognized by Women and Infants Hospital as "Woman of the Year in Science". She was recognized as one of the "Best and the Brightest" in Science and Technology by Esquire Magazine (2003) for her work on the GAIA HIV vaccine. In 2006 she was named "Doctor of the Year" by the Rhode Island Medical Women's Association. In 2007 she received the Al Fisher "Red Ribbon Award" for her AIDS work in West Africa, from AIDS Project Rhode Island. She has published more than 100 articles and chapters describing the development of epitope-driven vaccines and the application of immunoinformatics tools.

She nourished a productive laboratory (the TB/HIV Research Laboratory) at Brown before shifting her primary effort from Brown to EpiVax in 2006. As CEO of EpiVax, she successfully established client relationships with Amgen, Eli Lilly, Chiron and a range of smaller biotech companies. Last but certainly not least, she is the proud mother of two beautiful and intelligent children ages 19 and 15.

Interests

Anne (Annie) S. De Groot, M.D., CEO & CSO, EpiVax, Inc.
Associate Professor of Medicine, Brown University (Adjunct as of Fall 2005)

De Groot earned degrees from Smith College (BA, 1978) and the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago (MD, 1983). She was trained in internal medicine at Tufts New England Medical Center (1986), and then went on to complete additional training in immunoinformatics and vaccine research under Jay Berzofsky at the National Institutes of Health (1989). Following her fellowship at the NIH, she returned to Tufts NEMC for clinical training in infectious disease (1991). She became board certified in Internal Medicine in 1986 and in Infectious Disease in 1992.

In 1992, she joined the faculty of the Brown University Medical School, where she opened the TB/HIV Research Laboratory. De Groot licensed the EpiMatrix vaccine design technology from her laboratory at Brown and established EpiVax, a bioinformatics and vaccine design company in 1998.

She teaches undergraduate students vaccinology at Brown University and the University of Rhode Island, and provides clinical care to patients at the Rhode Island TB clinic and a free clinic in Providence. She is founder and Co-Chief editor of Infectious Diseases in Corrections report (an on-line electronic journal, established 1998) and founder and Scientific Director of the GAIA Vaccine Foundation (501c3, 2002).

De Groot has received uninterrupted federal funding for her research activities through multiple NIH (K08, R21, R01, SBIR) and foundation grants since 1989. She has published more than 70 articles and chapters describing the development of epitope-driven vaccines and the application of immunoinformatics tools.

In addition to her active research on vaccines for HIV, TB, Tularemia, Smallpox and EBV, she is a pioneer in the field of deimmunizing protein therapeutics. She was the recipient of a National Foundation for Infectious Diseases-Eli Lilly Award, two Rhode Island Foundation awards and a Commercial Innovation Award (from the Rhode Island Center for Cellular Medicine). More recently, she was recognized as one of the "Best and the Brightest" in Science and Technology by Esquire Magazine (2003) and Rhode Island Woman Physician of the Year (2006) and the Red Ribbon Award (2007) for her work on the GAIA HIV vaccine.

Degrees

MD, University of Chicago

Teaching

Students 1994-2007

Brown University Undergraduate Senior Honors Thesis, Primary Mentor

Jessica Stevens 1994 HIV/Women Epidemiology Res.
Kimberly Fisher 1994 HIV Immunology Res.
Caroline Roberts 1994 HIV/Vaccines Immunology
Brian Edelson 1995 TB/Vaccines Immunology
Howard Hughes Fellow
Tamar Renaud 1995 Prisons Epidemiology
Howard Hughes Fellow
Stephanie Gampper 1996 TB/HIV Epidemiology Research
Undergraduate Teaching and
Research Award
Lieschen Quiroz 1996 TB/Vaccines (Philippines)
Undergraduate Teaching and
Research Award
Michelle Ferdinand 1996 HIV Epidemiology Research
Neal Muni 1996 Biotech Applications
James Robert Schafer 1997 HIV vaccine research
Saihou Sabelleh HIV Res. Fellowship
Igor Brichkov 1998 TB vaccine research
Jean David Barnea 1998 HIV vaccine research (India)
Tony Breu 2000 TB vaccine research (summer )
Natasha Chinai 1998-2001 HIV vaccine research
India/ HIV2)
Summer Howard Hughes Fellow
Kara Chew 2000-2001 TB vaccine research
UTRA 2000
Brian Tuch 2000-2001 HIV evolution, UTRA 2000
Andrew Girvin 2000-2001 DNA vaccines, UTRA 2000
Ankanksha Mehta 2001-2002 DNA vaccines UTRA 2001
David Heller 2001-2002 HIV evolution, UTRA 2001
Basim Khan 2001-2002 Dendritic Cells UTRA 2001
Nicole Pattamanuch 2002-2003 Dendritic Cells/HPV

Rebecca Doctors 2002-2003 EBV epitopes/UTRA 2002, UTRA 2004
Shirley Chan 2003-2005 Testing a DNA based HPV vaccine. UTRA 2002,03
Sangeeta Tripathi 2003-2004 KAP related to Vaccines, Bamako, Mali

Dephine Huang 2004 MTCT in Bamako, Mali
Barbara Anto Internship Grant. (Pembroke Center)

Sara Kimball 2004-2005 EBV epitope mapping

Shuyi Zhang 2004-2005 Listeria-vectored vaccines

Jessica Beckerman 2004-2005 KAP related to Vaccines, Bamako, Mali (Royce)

Caitlin Cohen, Brendan Pelsue, Alexa Lafaunce KAP study in Bamako Markets
2005-2006 Bamako, Mali (Royce)

Erica Trauba, Rebecca Fox, Alexandra Dick. Oral History Project, Sikoro
2005-2006 Women's Group, Bamako Mali

Kathleen Bernard 2005-2006 Standard of Care in Prisons
Comparison to Community SOC
Providence (IDCR) 2006
Madeline DiLorenzo (Brown 2008) Smoke Fellowship
Five Finger Peer Ed Program
Bamako, Mali 2006
Bay Hudson (Harvard 2007) Five Finger Peer Ed Program
Bamako, Mali 2006
Erica Trauaba, Hong Troung, Megan Billman, Fiona Heckscher HIV testing and Counseling
(Brown 2008) Bamako, Mali 2006

Jared Meshekow and Victorial Albina (BU, 2008) Electronic Medical Records
(Labtracker Project)
Sikoro Clinic,
Bamako, Mali, 2006
Katie Fletcher (Mt Holyoke, 2007) Immunoinformatics and
Immunology Intership
EpiVax, Inc.
Providence, RI 2006

Web Links

Curriculum Vitae

Download Anne De Groot's Curriculum Vitae in PDF Format