• Title Professor of Biology and Virology, Immunology & Microbiology
  • Education BS, Merrimack College
    MS, Harvard School of Public Health
    ScD, Harvard School of Public Health
  • Area of Interest HIV entry and resistance to neutralizing antibodies; Filovirus vaccines and immune mechanism; Filovirus glycoprotein mediated pathogenicity, virus entry and antibody vulnerabilities; Pandemic Preparedness; SARS-CoV-2

Current Research

Dr. Nancy Sullivan is an internationally respected leader in viral immunology, emerging diseases prevention, and infectious disease research, Dr. Sullivan previously served as chief of the Biodefense Research Section at the Vaccine Research Center (VRC) in the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID). She was a member of the NIAID’s Pandemic Preparedness Working Group where she proposed the protoptype pathogen approach to vaccine development  [i] that is now in widespread use by national and international organizations. Dr. Sullivan was also deeply involved in the US response to COVID-19. During the pandemic, she coauthored close to 40 COVID-related research papers, covering topics as diverse as vaccine and therapeutics development and tracking of SARS-CoV-2 variant resistance to neutralization.

Beyond her work on COVID-19, Dr. Sullivan has a long-standing commitment to the study of emerging pathogens with pandemic potential including, mpox, Nipah, Ebola, Marburg, and other high consequence viruses. The global importance of her work became dramatically clear in the spring of 2014 with the multi-country outbreak of the deadly Ebola disease in West Africa.  Based on years of prior research developing gene-based approaches to Ebola vaccines, Dr. Sullivan and her team were first to demonstrate vaccine protection against Ebola infection in primates, leading to development of the ChAd3-Ebola vaccine that was deployed for efficacy testing during the 2013-2016 outbreak.

Modeling the role in public life she expects the NEIDL to play, Dr. Sullivan has taken her fight against emerging infectious diseases (EID) well outside her own lab. Her team developed vaccines against Marburg and Sudan viruses that have advanced to Phase I/II human clinical trials and are currently being developed by the Sabin Vaccines Institute. She also formed partnerships in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and led the discovery from a DRC Ebola survivor of a potently protective therapeutic monoclonal antibody, mAb114, that is effective in saving the lives of nearly 90% of Ebola patients who are treated soon after they contract the disease. In December of 2020, mAb114, became the NIH Vaccine Research Center’s first FDA-approved clinical product, and it is now marketed as Ebanga. Alongside these scientific breakthroughs, Dr. Sullivan founded a scientific research and capacity building training program that is preparing scientists in the DRC to develop and fund their own independent, regionally appropriate research programs.

For more information, please see the NEIDL website.

Selected Publications

  • Misasi, J., Wei, R. R., Wang, L., Pegu, A., Wei, C., Oloniniyi, O. K., Zhou, T., Moliva, J. I., Zhao, B., Choe, M., Yang, E. S., Zhang, Y., Boruszczak, M., Chen, M., Leung, K., Li, J., Yang, Z., Andersen, H., Carlton, K., . . . Sullivan, N. J. (2024). A multispecific antibody against SARS-CoV-2 prevents immune escape in vitro and confers prophylactic protection in vivo. Science Translational Medicine, 16(768). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.ado9026
  • Mucker, E. M., Freyn, A. W., Bixler, S. L., Cizmeci, D., Atyeo, C., Earl, P. L., Natarajan, H., Santos, G., Frey, T. R., Levin, R. H., Meni, A., Arunkumar, G. A., Stadlbauer, D., Jorquera, P. A., Bennett, H., Johnson, J. C., Hardcastle, K., Americo, J. L., . . . Sullivan, N. J., . . . Hooper, J. W. (2024). Comparison of protection against mpox following mRNA or modified vaccinia Ankara vaccination in nonhuman primates. Cell, 187(20), 5540-5553.
  • Vakaniaki, E. H., Kacita, C., Kinganda-Lusamaki, E., O’Toole, Á., Wawina-Bokalanga, T., Mukadi-Bamuleka, D., Amuri-Aziza, A., Malyamungu-Bubala, N., Mweshi-Kumbana, F., Mutimbwa-Mambo, L., Belesi-Siangoli, F., Mujula, Y., Parker, E., Muswamba-Kayembe, P., Nundu, S. S., Lushima, R. S., Makangara-Cigolo, J., Mulopo-Mukanya, N., . . . Sullivan, N. J., . . . Mbala-Kingebeni, P. (2024). Sustained human outbreak of a new MPXV clade I lineage in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Nature Medicine, 30(10), 2791–2795.
  • Nachega, J. B., Sam-Agudu, N. A., Ogoina, D., Mbala-Kingebeni, P., Ntoumi, F., Nakouné, E., Njouom, R., Lewis, R. F., Gandhi, M., Rosenthal, P. J., Rawat, A., Wilson, L. A., Kindrachuk, J., Liesenborghs, L., Mills, E. J., Preiser, W., Rimoin, A. W., Sullivan, N. J., Peeters, M., . . . Muyembe-Tamfum, J. J. (2024). The surge of mpox in Africa: a call for action. The Lancet Global Health, 12(7), e1086–e1088.
  • Happe, M., Hofstetter, A. R., Wang, J., Yamshchikov, G. V., Holman, L. A., Novik, L., Strom, L., Kiweewa, F., Wakabi, S., Millard, M., Kelley, C. F., Kabbani, S., Edupuganti, S., Beck, A., Kaltovich, F., Murray, T., Tsukerman, S., Carr, D., . . . Sullivan, N. J., . . . Matovu, R. (2024). Heterologous cAd3-Ebola and MVA-EbolaZ vaccines are safe and immunogenic in US and Uganda phase 1/1b trials. Npj Vaccines, 9(1). DOI: 10.1038/s41541-024-00833-z
  • Honko, A. N., Hunegnaw, R., Moliva, J. I., Ploquin, A., Dulan, C. N. M., Murray, T., Carr, D., Foulds, K. E., Geisbert, J. B., Geisbert, T. W., Johnson, J. C., Wollen-Roberts, S. E., Trefry, J. C., Stanley, D. A., & Sullivan, N. J. (2024). A Single-shot ChAd3 Vaccine Provides Protection from Intramuscular and Aerosol Sudan Virus Exposure. bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory). DOI: 10.1101/2024.02.07.579118
  • Xu, D., Powell, A. E., Utz, A., Sanyal, M., Do, J., Patten, J. J., Moliva, J. I., Sullivan, N. J., Davey, R. A., & Kim, P. S. (2024). Design of universal Ebola virus vaccine candidates via immunofocusing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121(7). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2316960121
  • Sankhala, R. S., Lal, K. G., Jensen, J. L., Dussupt, V., Mendez-Rivera, L., Bai, H., Wieczorek, L., Mayer, S. V., Zemil, M., Wagner, D. A., Townsley, S. M., Hajduczki, A., Chang, W. C., Chen, W., Donofrio, G. C., Jian, N., King, H. a. D., Lorang, C. G., . . Sullivan, N. J., . . . Joyce, M. G. (2024). Diverse array of neutralizing antibodies elicited upon Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle vaccination in rhesus macaques. Nature Communications, 15(1). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44265-0

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