Director, Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group

Gregory A. Poland, M.D., is the director of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group — a state-of-the-art research group and laboratory that seeks to understand genetic drivers of viral vaccine response and application of systems biology approaches to the generation of immunity, as well as the development of novel vaccines important to public health. The Poland lab has developed the field of viral vaccine immunogenetics, the immune response network theory, and the field of vaccinomics and adversomics.

Dr. Poland holds the academic rank of professor of medicine and infectious diseases and molecular pharmacology and experimental therapeutics. He also serves as the president of the Edward Jenner Vaccine Society and is the Editor-in-Chief for the journal Vaccine.

Dr. Poland has chaired or been a member of every Federal committee involved in vaccine decision-making, including the NVAC, VRBAC, and the ACIP. Dr. Poland advocated for and successfully persuaded the CDC to recommend annual influenza vaccine for all Americans age 6 months and older, and was the initial and primary advocate for requiring influenza immunization for all health care providers. Dr. Poland was the 2013 recipient of the Mayo Distinguished Investigator award by the Mayo Board of Trustees, and the 2012 recipient of the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Lifetime Research Achievement Award. In 2012, Dr. Poland was named in the top 25 list of vaccine influencers in the world. In February 2013, he was nominated for membership in the Institute of Medicine (IOM). In addition, he recently received an NIH MERIT Award, an honor accorded to less than 5% of the nation’s NIH-funded investigators. Dr. Poland was awarded the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence in December 2008. In 2008, he was named a Master of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Poland received the Hsu prize in International Infectious Disease Epidemiology in 2007, and the Charles Merieux Lifetime Achievement Award in Vaccinology from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases in May 2006. In December 2006, Dr. Poland was elected President of the Defense Health Board, serving two terms. In 2005 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Illinois Wesleyan University, his alma mater. He was appointed as the Mary Lowell Leary Professor in Medicine (the highest academic distinction for a faculty member) by Mayo Clinic’s Board of Trustees in 2004. In May 2003, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Dr. Poland served on the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Taskforce on Pandemic Influenza, and currently chairs the American College of Physician’s Adult Immunization Advisory Board. Dr. Poland received the inaugural Gold Medal from the Spanish Vaccinology Society in 2001. He is the immediate past president of the Department of Defense’s Defense Health Board and the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board.

Dr. Poland received his medical degree from the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Illinois, and completed his residency and advanced post-graduate work at the University of Minnesota/Abbott-Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis, MN. He has published over 500 professional papers, book chapters, and editorials. He is actively and regularly sought after by both scientific and lay print, TV, and radio media for his views on vaccine policy. Dr. Poland is a popular conference and seminar speaker on the topics of vaccines, scientific literacy, vaccine hesitancy, scientific writing and publication, and biodefense.