Research Mission
The Vaccine & Infectious Disease Institute - VAXINFECTIO, is part of the Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences; VAXINFECTIO represents a close collaboration between:
- Health Economics & Modelling Infectious Diseases (CHERMID),
- Centre for the Evaluation of Vaccination (CEV),
- Laboratory of Experimental Hematology (LEH) and
- Laboratory of Medical Microbiology (LMM)
VAXINFECTIO was established as a formal Institute of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Antwerp in 2007 to promote the multidisciplinary research of vaccines and infectious diseases. Since January 2008 VAXINFECTIO is formally recognized as one of the five Centre’s of Excellence (CoE’s) of the University of Antwerp. Additionally, a new collaboration between VAXINFECTIO and the Evolutionary Ecology Group at the department of Biology, Faculty of Science, was recognized in 2019 as the CoE called “ASCID” (Antwerp Study Centre for Infectious Diseases). In 2025, a renewal of this existing consortium will go forward as the CoE called “VAXINAID-C2P” with a main focus on Vaccination, Infectious Diseases, Antimicrobials and Immunotherapeuties: Data Science from Cell to Policy.
VAXINFECTIO is also holder of Industrial Research Funding (IOF) together with the Faculty of Design Sciences, Department of Product Development (IOF consortium VAXINFECTIO-PO), which major focus on applied/industrial research, and creation of valorization opportunities.
Mission Statement
VAXINFECTIO is aimed at integrated vaccine and microbiological research with a focus on increasing the understanding of the immune response in prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines (including tumor vaccines) and on the containment of antibiotic resistance.
Within this mission statement, the following objectives are pursued:
To study microbiological, immunological, mathematical-biological, statistical, economical, societal and epidemiological aspects of infectious diseases and vaccines. To create a scientific platform in order:
- To consolidate the existing pool of knowledge
- To advance knowledge with interdisciplinary focus
- To increase scientific output in the listed disciplines
- To attract additional funding resources