WASHINGTON, DC— The Sabin Vaccine Institute Board of Trustees voted at its fall meeting to appoint two new board members, U.S. legislative advisor Mary Ann Chaffee and development expert Nancy Gardner Hargrave.

Mary Ann Chaffee is legislative director and principal policy advisor to U.S. Senator Zell Miller. In a federal public service career spanning 20 years, she has worked on bills pertaining to Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drug benefits, biomedical research, preventive health services, and vaccines. She previously was policy advisor to former Senator Dale Bumpers, when she formulated the Senator's agenda for such issues as government purchase and pricing of pediatric vaccines, childhood immunization, and global polio eradication. She holds a Master in Public Administration degree from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. There she received Harvard’s Women’s Leadership Fellowship. She also earned a Master of Science degree from Case Western University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio State University.

Nancy Gardner Hargrave is an independent development consultant who provides capital campaign planning and management, major gifts, and foundation and corporate relations fundraising services primarily to non-profit scientific and health organizations. Her clients have included the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the United States Institute of Peace, the National Youth Science Foundation, and the Sabin Vaccine Institute. She formerly served for 18 years with the National Academy of Sciences, departing in 1999 as Director of Development. There, she raised private funds to benefit the Academy and its operating arm, the National Research Council. She is credited with leading a $36 million endowment campaign, directing the Academy Industry Program, and organizing The Presidents’ Circle, a support group of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. She holds a Master of Arts from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Arts from Ohio Wesleyan University.

Chairman of the Board H.R. Shepherd called the appointments of Chaffee and Hargrave “a welcomed addition of talent and energy” to the board. “Mary Ann Chaffee offers valuable insight about how policy is being made on the Hill and Nancy Hargrave has her finger on the pulse of the philanthropic community. The Sabin Vaccine Institute stands to gain important guidance from each of these new members and I appreciate their dedication of time and service toward the advancement of vaccine policy and science.”

The Board Member’s dinner featured a timely speech on national bioterrorism threats, presented by fellow board member and bioterrorism expert Michael T. Osterholm, Ph.D., M.P.H., director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy at the University of Minnesota Academic Health Center. Dr. Osterholm is author of Living Terrors, which exposes the potential of biological infectious disease agents as threats to the nation’s public health.

Also serving on the Sabin Vaccine Institute Board of Trustees are Co-chairman William R. Berkley, founder, chairman, and CEO of W.R. Berkeley Corporation; Heloisa Sabin, the late Albert B. Sabin’s widow; and Maj. Gen. Philip K. Russell, M.D., founding president and senior advisor to the chairman, who is presently serving as special advisor on vaccine production and development for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Public Health Preparedness. Completing the board membership are Allan L. Goldstein, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The George Washington University; Jane C. I. Hirsh; Lewis A. Miller, president of Intermedica; Edward S. Neiss, M.D., Ph.D.; Carol Ruth Shepherd; Michael E. Whitham, Esq.; and Lawrence J. Wilker.

The Albert B. Sabin Vaccine Institute’s mission is to prevent disease by stimulating development of new vaccines and increasing immunization rates. Founded in 1993, the Institute is headquartered in New Canaan, Connecticut, and recently opened program offices in Washington, D.C. The Institute pursues Albert Sabin’s vision of a world protected from disease by vaccines. Sabin Institute colloquia bring together leaders of academia, industry, government and philanthropy in a shared quest to accelerate the development of vaccines to prevent infectious diseases and to prevent and treat cancer. As an immunization advocate, it helps policy makers shape sound public health policies and informs the public about the importance of vaccinations. The Sabin Institute’s Hookworm Vaccine Initiative is working to develop a vaccine to prevent an infection that afflicts more than twenty percent of the world’s population, a leading cause of malnutrition and stunted development.