Hot Food, Cool Science - Count Me In!!

Our Mission

Uno, The Official VDC Mascot
"Uno," the VDC Mascot*
The Vaccine Dinner Club (VDC) exists to facilitate networking, dialogue, and collaboration between members of the large and growing community of researchers, clinicians, policy makers, communicators, and historians/journalists who are interested in vaccine need, history, policy, discovery, development, testing, deployment, communication, use, and/or evaluation.

The VDC has two missions: To advance the practice of vaccine science by stimulating the intellectual potential and research productivity of the vaccine research community in the Southeast and to have a really good time at our monthly meetings.

When We Meet

Beginning in September 2025, the Vaccine Dinner Club now meets on a quarterly basis (September, December, March, June). Beginning in December 2025, meetings are held in-person and also recorded for later viewing by members and guests in exotic time zones.

Who We Are

Our membership includes investigators, students, staff, administrators, and other interesting people from academia (Emory University, Mercer University, the University of Georgia, Clayton State College, Samford University, Morehouse School of Medicine, the Medical College of Georgia, Georgia State University, Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Druid Hills High School), public health (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Carter Center), private industry (the Georgia Research Alliance, GeoVax, Merck), government (federal, state, and local), community based research organizations (Hope Clinic, ARCA), the judiciary (federal and state), the fourth estate (internet, print), charitable foundations (Robert Wood Johnson, Gates), and the general public (including one ukulele player, a guy who works for the FAA, at least two magicians, and several contra dancers).

With >5,000 active members (10-15% of whom attend at any given meeting), we are the largest regular gathering of vaccinophiles in the world.

But Wait... There's More!

The Rollins School of Public Health sponsors a wholly independent spinoff of the VDC that gathers during months that Quarterly meetings of the VDC are not being held. First organized in October 2025, and still waiting to be christened, the "As-Yet-Unnamed Dinner Club" (UDC) addresses public health issues that are not vaccine specific. It is an EXTREMELY cool organization that you should also join, if you haven't already. READ MORE ABOUT IT

Our Sponsors

It may be true that there ain't no such thing as a free lunch (TANSTAAFL) but membership in, and Dinner at, the Club doesn't cost our members a cent. So next time you see them say "Thank You!" to the leadership of the Emory Vaccine Center, the Center for AIDS Research at Emory, and the Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences (BSHES) at the Rollins School of Public Health for paying for the VDC, so you don't have to.

 

* In honor of Dr. Edward Jenner, "Uno," an American domestic cow who collaborates in vaccine research with VDC member Amelia R. Woolums, DVM, PhD, Department of Large Animal Medicine at the University of Georgia, is the official mascot of the VDC. The term vaccination comes from the Latin vacca (for cow) and was invented by Dr. Jenner after deriving the first immunization for smallpox from cowpox matter he got from the hand of milkmaid Sarah Nelmes.

Due to his busy research program we have not yet been successful in scheduling Uno to present at the VDC.