James E. Crowe, Jr., MD leads the Vanderbilt Vaccine Center, which has specialized expertise in isolating fully human, naturally occurring antibodies to human diseases. These antibodies can be used as therapeutics, prophylactic therapeutics, for vaccine development or vaccine quality control reagents, or in diagnostics. Moreover, these naturally occurring antibodies serve as templates to be optimized and engineered for improved characteristics. The Vanderbilt Vaccine Center specializes in research related to biodefense and emerging infectious diseases.