Dr Rip Ballou

Dr Ripley Ballou is a senior R&D leader with a wealth of experience in vaccines and infectious diseases. His experience includes research, technical and clinical development, quality and regulatory activities involved in taking vaccines and monoclonal antibodies targeting infectious diseases, from discovery through to the clinic. He also has experience of start-up companies including being instrumental in the launch of Univax Corporation which was developing a monoclonal antibody programme against sepsis targets.

Dr Ballou currently serves as a Senior Scientific Advisor to the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) where he works on monoclonal antibody programs targeting HIV. He was previously Vice President and Head at GSK Global Vaccines, based in Maryland, US where he led programs developing vaccines for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), Dengue, Ebola and Cytomegalovirus (CMV). Prior to that he was Vice President and Head, Clinical Research and Translational Science, Vaccine Discovery and Development at GSK Vaccines in Rixensart, Belgium. He has also served as Deputy Director for Vaccines, Infectious Diseases Development, Global Health at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and as a Vice President, Clinical Development at MedImmune where he worked on early and late-stage vaccine and monoclonal antibody programs. Dr Ballou received his MD from Emory University School of Medicine, trained in Medicine and Infectious Disease at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre and began his research career in vaccine development at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research where he led a team that, with GSK, co-developed a malaria vaccine that was recently recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for widespread use in sub-Saharan Africa.