Bruce Gellin

Biography

 Dr. Bruce Gellin joined the Sabin Vaccine Institute as the inaugural president of Global Immunization in March 2017. Prior to joining Sabin, Dr. Gellin served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health and Director of the National Vaccine Program Office at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where he was the principle technical, strategic and policy advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Health on all aspects of the National Vaccine Program. In this role, Dr. Gellin served as a technical and policy advisor to the World Health Organization, focusing on influenza vaccines and global issues of vaccine hesitancy. In addition, he represented the U.S. government on the research and development focus of the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration and led the pandemic influenza preparedness and response activities of the Global Health Security Initiative. At HHS, Dr. Gellin was responsible for developing the National Vaccine Plan, our country's blueprint for all aspects of vaccines and immunization. He also coordinated government-wide efforts on seasonal influenza and the corresponding opportunity to strengthen the adult immunization system in the United States. In 2005, he led the creation of HHS’s first pandemic influenza preparedness and response plan. Later, during the 2009 influenza pandemic, he led the U.S. team that donated H1N1 vaccine to other countries, expanded the nation’s vaccine safety monitoring system, and coordinated interagency efforts on vaccine development, supply and distribution. Prior to joining HHS, Dr. Gellin founded and served as executive director of the National Network for Immunization Information, worked as a medical officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, served as Epidemic Intelligence Service officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and was a Luce Scholar in the Philippines. Dr. Gellin’s global health work includes consulting for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, chairing the World Health Organization’s Global Action Plan for Influenza Vaccines Advisory Group, working with the Children’s Vaccine Initiative, and serving as a Warren Weaver fellow at the Rockefeller Foundation. He is one of the nation’s principle spokespersons on vaccines and immunizations and has served as on the faculty at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and Vanderbilt University Medical School. He recently was appointed to Georgetown University Medical Center’s Department of Medicine as an adjunct professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases. In 1991, Dr. Gellin earned an M.P.H. in epidemiology from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. He is a graduate of Weill Cornell Medical College and was a Morehead Scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed his internship and residency in internal medicine at Vanderbilt University and later was a preventive medicine resident at Cornell and at the CDC’s Arctic Investigations Program in Anchorage, Alaska. Dr. Gellin achieved board certification in internal medicine and infectious diseases, is an active member of numerous professional organizations, and serves as a peer reviewer for over a dozen medical journals. In 2016, the Infectious Diseases Society of America awarded Dr. Gellin with the Society Citation in recognition of his work in the field of infectious diseases, and in 2015, he was bestowed the honor of the American Medical Association’s Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding Government Service for his leadership and vision while overseeing our nation’s vaccine and immunization initiatives. Dr. Gellin and his family have lived in Washington, D.C., for the past 15 years.

Research Interest

 Vaccine, clinical trials, vaccine development