Vaccine Grant for Pitt to better control disease

Diseases that have been long eliminated in industrialized countries continue to spread in developing ones. Studies are being done at the University of Pittsburgh about how vaccinations can most effectively change that.

Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health received a $10 million grant from the Gates Foundation to begin a four-year study on vaccinations. Dr. Donald Burke, Dean of the Public Health School, says super computers will develop a ficticious community of people to similate realistic situations. From there they determine which properties of a vaccination are most important, such as how many people get vaccinated, how strong it is, or other criteria such as age or location that play factors.