Leadership

Annie De Groot, M.D., Co-Director

Dr. De Groot was educated at Smith College (BA, 1978), Pritzker School of Medicine and the University of Chicago (MD, 1983). She trained in Internal Medicine (New England Medical Center (Tufts) 1986) and received additional training in immunoinformatics and vaccinology with Russell Howard and Jay Berzofsky (NIH, LPD and NCI 1986-89), followed by clinical training in infectious disease at New England Medical Center (Tufts) (1989-92). She received Board certification in Internal Medicine (1986) and Infectious Disease (1992).

Having received her first R01 as an ID fellow, she was invited by Ken Mayer and Charles CJ Carpenter of Brown University to move from Tufts NEMC to the newly built Brown University BioMedical Center on campus, and in 1992, she opened the TB/HIV Research Laboratory. She initially worked on TB and HIV epitope discovery, and eventually licensed the EpiMatrix vaccine design technology developed in her TB/HIV Research Lab at Brown and established EpiVax in 1998. Between 2006 and 2008 she successfully devoted her attention to bringing EpiVax to the forefront of the applied immunoinformatics field. In order to continue to teach and pursue non-commercial research, she founded the Institute for Immunology and Informatics at University of Rhode Island and was appointed director in 2008.

Dr. De Groot is considered a thought leader in the field of epitope-driven vaccine design and “immunogenicity” of protein therapeutics. Her work has been recognized by a number of national and international organizations. She has been the recipient of a NFID-Eli Lilly Award, two RI Foundation awards and a Commercial Innovation Award (Slater Biomedical Foundation), was given a “Genius Award” in Science and Technology by Esquire Magazine (2003) and honored by the RI Tech Collective (2006) for work on the GAIA HIV vaccine. More recently, she was awarded “RI Woman Physician of the Year” in 2006 and in 2007, she received the Alvan Fisher Award for Medical Advocacy from AIDS Project Rhode Island and the “Woman of Achievement Award, 2008” from the YWCA for her work relating to access to care in Providence and West Africa and an award for “Career Achievement” from the Providence Business News in May 2009.

Denice Spero, Ph.D., Co-Director

Dr. Spero has an extensive background in pharmaceutical Research and Development at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Most recently, as Vice President of drug discovery support, she was responsible for establishing and leading the discovery organization’s science in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK), pharmaceutics, and general pharmacology for the therapeutic areas Immunology and Inflammation and Cardiovascular Diseases. In this capacity she and her team established over 30 assays to evaluate drug candidates for optimal safety and DMPK characteristics. She also led a team of scientists which successfully placed three drugs into clinical development for Multiple Sclerosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Dr. Spero was highly active in the Diversity and Inclusion initiatives at Boehringer Ingelheim and was a women’s leadership mentor and diversity spokesperson to R&D. She co-founded Developing World Cures, Inc. (DWC) and functioned as its President and member of the board through 2009. DWC was established to discover and develop new therapeutics for the treatment of neglected diseases with a focus on diarrheal diseases and dengue virus. Dr. Spero is now the co-Director of the Institute for Immunology and Informatics and holds a Research Professor position at the University of Rhode Island. The Institute for Immunology and Informatics (I’Cubed) was founded with a 13M dollar U-19 grant to accelerate vaccine discovery in the areas of infectious diseases and biodefense using state-of-the-art bioinformatics tools. She holds over 60 publications and patents and has given numerous invited lectures in the fields of synthetic chemistry, medicinal chemistry and drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics. Dr. Spero was noted by the Rhode Island Business Quarterly as one of “Four Women to Watch” as a woman advancing the state’s knowledge economy. She was recently awarded, along with Dr. De Groot, a Providence-based grant to bring together scientists and entrepreneurs to teach them the principles of biotechnology company start-up.

Dr. Spero holds a B.A. in chemistry and biology, Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Wheaton College, an M.S. in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Brown University. She did post-doctoral research at Harvard University in the laboratory of Professor Y. Kishi working on the total synthesis of the anti-cancer drug Halichondrin B.