News Releases

IBBR Fellow Contributes to Research Team That Characterizes the Structure of a Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccine Candidate


Arrangement of the RSV F fusion protein trimers around the nanoparticle carrier core in the vaccine material, as determined by solution X-ray and neutron scattering.

January 14, 2021 - IBBR Fellow Alexander Grishaev and collaborators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Novavax characterized the structure of a nanoparticle vaccine candidate for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), a virus that can cause severe respiratory infections in children. The team applied advanced biophysical measurement... Read More

IBBR Publishes 2020 Issue of BioNEXUS Magazine


January 11, 2021 -- The Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) is pleased to share the second issue of BioNEXUS magazine.   

BioNEXUS highlights IBBR's efforts to advance understanding of the structure and function of biomolecules and biological systems and to apply these discoveries to analytical tool innovation and to disease prevention and treatment.

The current issue of BioNEXUS includes a feature on The Next Vaccine: How Far We Have Come and the Hope for Tomorrow as well as stories about therapeutic discovery,... Read More

IBBR Fellow Zvi Kelman Receives Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award


December 7, 2020 – IBBR Fellow Zvi Kelman has been recognized for scientific achievement with the Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award. Dr. Kelman, Director of the Biomolecular Labeling Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, University of Maryland College Park, received this award as a member of a NIST research team on the project “Developing a suite of standards including the first NIST living reference material to strengthen the nation's response to potential biothreats”.... Read More

Protein Structures Identified by IBBR Team Provide Insights into T Cell Recognition of Targets for Cancer Therapies


August 4, 2020 – Adoptive T cell therapy (ACT) is a treatment for patients with several forms of cancer. This therapeutic effect is mediated by T cells through recognition of tumor neoantigens, which are proteins not previously recognized by the immune system. To better understand interactions between neoantigens and T cell receptors (TCRs) that could impact therapeutic development, a team in the laboratory of IBBR Investigator Dr. Roy Mariuzza, Professor, UMCP Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, in collaboration with IBBR Fellow Brian Pierce, Assistant Professor, UMCP... Read More

Assuring Quality of Vaccines at the Point-of-Care: IBBR Team Advances Detection Method


June 08, 2020 - Analytical techniques to evaluate the condition of vaccine formulations are critical to quality assurance of these substances. Certain vaccines, including those with aluminum adjuvants, can be sensitive to freezing, which would damage the vaccine, and therefore deviations from temperature ranges prescribed for storage and transport need to be monitored. A method for detecting freezing events of liquid vaccines is described in a recent publication in the journal Vaccine featuring work by the laboratory of Bruce Yu, PhD, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the... Read More

IBBR Laboratory Develops a Database of Coronavirus Protein Structures, CoV3D, to Facilitate Advances in COVID-19 Research


June 8, 2020 - In response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, researchers across the world have been working to rapidly develop tests, vaccines, and therapeutics. High resolution structures of coronavirus proteins are critical to understanding the virus and how it causes disease, as well as how the immune system recognizes the virus, which can be used to design effective vaccines and antibody-based therapeutics. To provide a simple and up-to-date reference of coronavirus structural data to the scientific community, a team in the laboratory of IBBR... Read More

IBBR Researchers Awarded $850K from NSF to Study How Plants Defend Against Fungal Invasion


(Rockville, MD, February 25, 2020) Researchers at the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) recently received $850K from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance our understanding of how fungi like powdery mildew infect plants including food source crops, and how plants fight back.  The will support advances in sustainable farming by revealing the mechanisms that fungi use to infect plants.

Kunal Kundu Receives Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award


February 13, 2020 - Please join us in congratulating Kunal Kundu for receiving an Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award from the UMCP Graduate School.

IBBR Request for Proposals (RFP): GMP Biomanufacturing Facility Available - Rockville, Maryland


The Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) is accepting proposals to lease a bio-manufacturing facility configured to produce biologicals under cGMP conditions in compliance with FDA requirements for phase I/II clinical trials. The facility is also equipped to perform process development research, pre-clinical manufacturing for material necessary to conduct IND-enabling toxicology studies, proof of concept (POC) studies, and process demonstration in advance of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) manufacturing.

IBBR-REFI Travel Fellowship: Spring 2020 Application Open


February 7, 2020 - The IBBR-REFI Travel Fellowship supports UMCP graduate students and postdoctoral researchers working on projects aligned with the institutes' shared missions.