As chief working officer on the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI), Thomas Denny is within the distinctive place of serving to folks struggle flu and HIV, creating the subsequent technology of COVID-19 vaccines, and all of the whereas main a $120 million enterprise.
He was not too long ago named one of many prime well being care COOs within the nation recognition of the sort of crucial behind-the-scenes work he performs as a senior chief: overseeing every little thing from finance and program administration, regulatory and compliance points, mental property and amenities administration to biosafety, human sources, and data expertise.
It is a prolonged record of duties. However Denny, a professor of medication at Duke College Faculty of Medication, finds reward within the breakthroughs that come from workforce effort.
“My position is to create that surroundings for investigators to proceed to develop their packages and to encourage a multidisciplinary workforce of scientists that over time develop new forms of collaborations and new alternatives for grants and completely different areas to pursue — on the highest attainable stage we will,” says Denny, an knowledgeable in molecular immunology who additionally earned a grasp’s diploma from the Institute of Regulation and Medical Ethics on the College of Glasgow.
“Which means no shortcuts, full compliance and transparency, and being good stewards of the sources which have been given to us.”
Rising the DHVI
As a world chief in analysis, vaccines, and therapeutics, the DHVI has employed and collaborated with scientists domestically and globally for the previous 4 a long time to make strides at stopping threats to public well being.
Denny helps lead the institute with its director, Barton F. Haynes, MD, the Frederic M. Hanes Professor of Medication and Immunology. Their management has helped put the DHVI on the forefront of analysis and growth concentrating on HIV, influenza, and different infectious illnesses.
Most not too long ago, the DHVI has led the best way in analysis, revolutionary testing, and vaccines for COVID-19, extra exactly generally known as SARS-CoV-2. DVHI researchers are making progress in creating a pan-coronavirus vaccine that would supply large safety in opposition to COVID-19 and its variants.
Denny joined DHVI in 2006 after Haynes requested him to hitch his workforce and assist construct and develop the Duke Middle for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology.
On the time, Denny led analysis and diagnostic groups in New Jersey, the place he served as mayor of Cranford in 1999 and progressed as a professor and assistant dean on the New Jersey Medical Faculty in Newark.
There he supported the medical work of James Oleske, MD, MPH, who was one of many first to acknowledge that HIV-positive pregnant moms may transmit HIV to their creating youngster. The varsity was additionally one of many first to develop a complete maternal-infant HIV program and helped develop the primary use of AZT in pregnant girls to dam transmission of the virus from the mom to youngster.
“Tom Denny was well-respected within the HIV/AIDS subject as a medical and laboratory investigator, and each particular person I requested about him mentioned in the event you can recruit Tom Denny, one can find he’s terrific and can do a beautiful job,” Haynes says. “And he has.”
When Denny joined DHVI, its complete complement numbered about 35 folks. Since then, the institute has grown to greater than 300 individuals who collectively are taking analysis in immunology and infectious illnesses from early discovery section to translational section, that means they’ll each create merchandise like vaccines for HIV, flu, and COVID and carry out medical trials to check their effectiveness.
“We’ve skilled phenomenal progress and acquisition of expertise, like our major investigators,” Denny says.
The expansion, he says, relies on a perception in bringing scientists from numerous backgrounds and coaching to work collectively via your entire translational analysis path. DHVI attracts on researchers with experience in disciplines together with virology, immunology, structural biology, biophysics, computational biology, chemistry, manufacturing, and medical trials.
Denny believes DHVI has grown and retained proficient school and workers due to a dedication to its mission to generate advances that may profit society, and due to the dedication and experience of DHVI school and workers.
“We’ve been on a tremendous trajectory and outplaced any imaginative and prescient we had,” Denny says.
COVID-19 testing technique
After the COVID-19 pandemic started three years in the past, Denny spearheaded one of the crucial profitable COVID-19 campus surveillance testing packages within the nation.
In July 2020, on the request of Duke College President Vincent E. Value, Denny collaborated with present and former DHVI colleagues Anthony Moody, MD, and Mattia Bonsignoria, MD, MS, to develop a strategy to check for asymptomatic COVID-19 infections on campus.
Utilizing his information from the early days of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Denny and senior members of his lab together with Raul Louzao and Todd DeMarco, together with Thad Gurley of the Moody lab, arrange a program able to testing over 30,000 samples every week from Duke college students, school, and workers.
He constructed a workforce of over 50 technicians to work in three shifts. They processed samples, learn check outcomes, and supplied info quickly to assist contact tracing. Denny’s revolutionary use of robotic processing of the samples for pool expertise is one thing he used within the Eighties for HIV/AIDS testing.
This meant, for instance, that assessments from 5 folks might be mixed, reasonably than having to check samples one after the other. As soon as a optimistic end result got here from the pool of samples, technicians may then analyze that pool of outcomes to establish the suitable particular person.
Notably, these outcomes had a 24-hour turnaround, one thing that Denny says was essential to decreasing the danger of a person spreading the virus on campus.
“It was a really anxious couple of years that got here with provide chain challenges, instrument reliability questions, worries concerning the workforce, and fixed agonizing over the what-ifs,” says Denny. “In a pandemic like this you may’t cover away. You could work out methods to meet society’s wants, be inventive, work out a strategy to reply in a accountable method, and use your coaching to assist in order that extra folks aren’t put in danger, all whereas studying as a lot concerning the virus as attainable.”
Denny says that a part of main these efforts means predicting what can go flawed and figuring out methods to pivot to a different method. He praised Duke College and the Faculty of Medication for his or her communication and assist of DHVI’s each transfer.
Increasing to the RTP
Denny additionally leads the Immunology Virology High quality Evaluation Middle (IVQAC), a useful resource designed to assist home and worldwide virology and immunology laboratories exhibit the accuracy of their assay platforms which might be used to assist HIV associated medical trials.
Denny’s lab standardizes laboratory assessments used worldwide to assist medical analysis, scientifically generally known as assays. His lab displays how these assays are used.
“These assays can measure infectious illnesses equivalent to HIV, influenza and SARS-CoV-2, resulting in medical trials, assessments, vaccines, and coverings,” says Denny, who has authored and co-authored greater than 200 peer-reviewed papers.
He notes that the enterprise advantages from relationships with Duke College, the Faculty of Medication, and entities just like the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, the Nationwide Institute of Allergy and Infectious Ailments, and the Invoice and Melinda Gates Basis.
In 2019, the DHVI joined the Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Facilities, funded by the NIH, with a purpose to enhance the sturdiness of seasonal influenza vaccines and develop a common influenza vaccine via vaccine design, pre-clinical animal research, and early section medical trials.
As DHVI management carried this analysis ahead, the necessity for a bigger footprint and superior infrastructure grew to become clear. Faculty of Medication Dean Mary E. Klotman, MD, requested Denny to imagine an affiliate dean position to guide the institution of a further analysis campus on the largest analysis park in america, the Analysis Triangle Park (RTP).
A number of labs, places of work and areas on the new campus, Duke Analysis and Discovery @ RTP, have been prepared for renovations to start in March 2020, and the primary analysis groups started working within the new area in 2021.
In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Denny has led the RTP campus to exponential progress, together with groups of scientists and workers in analysis, product growth, medical trials, and course of growth, spanning greater than 200 folks and laboratories from DHVI, surgical procedure, pediatrics, medication, and molecular genetics and microbiology.
Imaginative and prescient for the Future
As Denny seems to be to the longer term, he sees a chance to simplify the nation’s COVID technique with a brand new technology of vaccines that scale back the necessity for frequent boosting.
It’s a theme that extends to the DHVI work to develop a common flu vaccine that would supply longer safety and probably fewer photographs. And he’s by no means removed from his roots in HIV analysis and the hunt to create an HIV vaccine.
“I’m dedicated to doing no matter I can do to assist DHVI school and workers obtain their scientific targets and to foster an surroundings that’s numerous, inclusive and nurturing,” he mentioned. “I’m dedicated to securing the sources and funding to assist that, whereas displaying our good stewardship, transparency, and accountability.”
Whereas his profession relies on a framework of science, he’s open to inspiration present in day-to-day life that, when time permits, contains boating on the waters close to Southport, North Carolina.
A serendipitous interplay in Durham at Duke College Hospital helped with naming his grandson Cameron, who was born in 2022.
The kid shares the identify with a nurse who helped with Denny’s restoration from surgical procedure final spring and Cameron Stadium, the house of the Duke Blue Devils, a favourite basketball workforce.
“My spouse Kim and I expect a granddaughter within the spring. I’m hoping one other inspirational story will assist us with naming her.”
Kelly Wright is director of communications on the Duke Human Vaccine Institute.
Pictures by Kate Medley
Most important characteristic picture: Thomas Denny is the chief working officer on the Duke Human Vaccine Institute.
