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. So as to continue to have an opportunity 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 for her AIDS prevention and care work in West Africa.

Denice Spero, Ph.D., Co-Director

Dr. Denice Spero is the co-Director of the Institute of Immunology and Informatics and has 20 years of experience in the area of pharmaceutical research and development. She was the co-founder and President and founder of Developing World Cures, Inc., a non-profit company whose mission is to discover and develop drugs for neglected tropical diseases. In this capacity she recruited a highly experienced team of pharmaceutical executives and scientists and identified novel developing world-focused projects from academia and biotech for collaboration. Prior to this she was a Vice President in Drug Discovery at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where she was responsible for establishing and leading the discovery organization’s science in drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK), drug formulation, and general pharmacology (early safety studies) for the therapeutic areas immunology/inflammation and cardiovascular diseases. At Boehringer Ingelheim Dr. Spero also led interdisciplinary projects teams which put three drugs into preclinical and clinical development for the autoimmune diseases multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. She holds over 60 publications and patents in the area of immunology, medicinal chemistry, drug discovery, and drug metabolism. Dr. Spero has also been a corporate consultant advocating diversity and inclusion initiatives. She has participated in numerous programs mentoring scientists.

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.