Senior Management

 

Science

Jae Seung Yang, Ph.D.

Senior Research Scientist, Clinical Immunology

jsyang@ivi.int

Jae Seung Yang joined IVI in 2004 after receiving his Ph.D. in Biology from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). His research interests focus on the development, standardization and validation of assays for measuring vaccine-induced immune responses, particularly against enteric and respiratory pathogens. He has developed a miniaturized ELISPOT assay which can be used in infants for detecting vaccine-specific antibody-secreting cells in a small (< 1ml) volume of blood, in addition to functional assays for cholera and typhoid vaccines. His laboratory has also contributed to the WHO prequalification of cholera vaccines (Shanchol and Euvichol) by assessing immune responses in several clinical studies.

Currently, his lab is supporting clinical studies of typhoid conjugate vaccine in collaboration with SK Bioscience, and is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Recently, Dr. Yang participated in NIBSC/WHO collaborative studies funded by BMGF, a multi-national project involving seven laboratories from six countries, to evaluate an international standard serum for Typhoid Vi-conjugate vaccines. IVI’s in-house assay has been demonstrated to be the best non-commercial alternative among seven laboratories’ methods for typhoid vaccine clinical trials. As a result, a further collaborative study is planned in 2018 with all participants set to use IVI’s in-house ELISA as the standard method. In addition, MFDS requested that his team lead a project to develop additional human standard serum for a typhoid vaccine.