• By Debbie Cesta
• Posted Monday, May 3, 2010

Making Super-Vaccines in Winston-Salem

Forsyth County has joined the “Science Café” movement that has swept the nation. SciWorks, Reynolda Gardens of Wake Forest University and Sigma Xi (the International honor society for scientific and engineering research) have scheduled another series of talks in March, April, and May 2010. The Science Cafés are supported in part by the PBS program NOVA scienceNOW.

Science Cafés are informal talks given by a local expert at a local gathering place. At a café participants can… learn about the latest issues in science, chat with a scientist in plain language, meet new friends, speak your mind, and, talk with your mouth full!

Time and Location: The talks will take place at Big Shotz Tavern, 109 S. Stratford Road in Winston-Salem. The Science Cafés begin at 7pm and will be held in the private room at Big Shotz. Participants are encouraged to enjoy dinner on their own from 6:00 - 7:00 pm. There is no fee to participate in the Science Café.

Tuesday, May 18 at 7pm: Making Super-Vaccines in Winston-Salem
There is no question that the battle against disease-causing microbes has benefited from the availability of a number of highly successful vaccines, for example, the polio and influenza vaccines. However, new vaccines are desperately needed to protect us from antibiotic-resistant and newly emerging microbes.

As evidenced by the shortage of vaccine against the H1N1 virus ('swine flu'), we must find new ways to make vaccines more rapidly and in sufficient amounts to cover all who require vaccination.

Is there a breakthrough in vaccine research that will allow us to achieve these goals? The answer is "Yes" - and it occurred here in Winston-Salem.

Guest Scientist: Steven B. Mizel, Ph.D, Department of Microbiology & Immunology, Wake Forest University School of Medicine