Dr Gregory A. Poland | Director of Mayo Vaccine Research Group
Mayo Clinic and Foundation

Dr Gregory A. Poland, Director of Mayo Vaccine Research Group, Mayo Clinic and Foundation

Gregory A. Poland, M.D., is the director of Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group — a state-of-the-art research group and laboratory that investigates issues surrounding vaccine response and novel vaccines important to public health. Dr. Poland holds the academic rank of professor of medicine and infectious diseases and molecular pharmacology and experimental therapeutics.  He is the director of the Immunization Clinic and director of the Program in Translational Immunovirology and Biodefense at Mayo Clinic. He also serves as the president of the Edward Jenner Vaccine Society and is the Editor-in-Chief for the journal “Vaccine.”
 
In 2013, Dr. Poland was named a “Distinguished Mayo Investigator”, by the Mayo Board of Trustees.  Dr. Poland is also the recent recipient of the Mayo Clinic Department of Medicine Lifetime Research Achievement Award. In 2012, Dr. Poland was named number 25th on Terrapinn’s list of the top 50 vaccine influencers in the world.  In February 2013, he was nominated for membership in the Institute of Medicine (IOM). In addition, he recently received an NIH MERIT Award, an honor accorded to less than 5% of the nation’s NIH-funded investigators. Dr. Poland was awarded the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence in December 2008. In 2008, he was named a Master of the American College of Physicians. Dr. Poland received the Hsu prize in International Infectious Disease Epidemiology in 2007, and the Charles Merieux Lifetime Achievement Award in Vaccinology from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases in May 2006. In December 2006, Dr. Poland was elected President of the Defense Health Board, serving two terms. In 2005 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Illinois Wesleyan University, his alma mater. He was appointed as the Mary Lowell Leary Professor in Medicine (the highest academic distinction for a faculty member) by Mayo Clinic’s Board of Trustees in 2004. In May 2003, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service. Since 2004, Dr. Poland has served on the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) Taskforce on Pandemic Influenza, and chaired the American College of Physician’s Adult Immunization Advisory Board. Dr. Poland received the inaugural Gold Medal from the Spanish Vaccinology Society in 2001. In 1998, he received a joint award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Health Care Financing Administration for his contribution to increasing adult immunization rates in the U.S. which was awarded by the Surgeon General of the United States.  He is the immediate past president of the Department of Defense’s Defense Health Board and the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board.
 
Dr. Poland participates on many national and academic review committees has published over 440 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters.
 
Dr. Poland received his medical degree from the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Springfield, Ill., and completed his residency and advanced post-graduate work at the University of Minnesota/Abbott-Northwestern Hospital, Minneapolis, Minn.

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