John Bogdan ’86 Honored by NIH
John Bogdan Jr. ’86 has received the 2004 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Award for his role in the grant application process of the National Biodefense Infrastructure Development Program at the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Bogdan is a scientific review administrator at NIAID in Bethesda, Md. He specializes in the review of grants and contracts for biocontainment laboratory construction, bioinformatics database development, and vaccine and therapeutic research in the prevention and treatment of disease caused by Category A-C priority pathogens and emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. He is active on the NIH Speaker’s Forum and has presented seminars on both his research and career in biotechnology at high schools and universities including Rensselaer.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in biology from Rensselaer, Bogdan earned a doctorate in microbiology and immunology at SUNY at Buffalo. He has worked as a scientist at Wyeth-Lederle Vaccines and Pediatrics, North American Vaccines Inc., and Baxter Bioscience Vaccines.
During his career, Bogdan has been involved in the development of bacterial vaccines for pneumococci, meningococci, and pertussis, has patented methods on the production and purification of bacterial toxins, and has written a number of papers on bacterial pathogenesis and vaccine development.
“At Rensselaer, I was fortunate to perform my senior thesis project at the Wadsworth Center, where I studied the human immune response to a newly discovered bacterial pathogen that causes Lyme disease,” says Bogdan.
He says he is pleased with Rensselaer’s progress in biotechnology research and is looking forward to seeing what the new Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies will bring.
“Rensselaer’s new Biotechnology Center is a unique gathering place where scientists, engineers, and IT specialists can rapidly transform their ideas from basic bench-top biology to cutting-edge translational research. This revolutionary type of learning center and workplace will help foster accelerated advances in biotechnology.”—T.L.
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