The Gamaleya Center

The Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology is the world’s leading research institution. The center was founded in 1891 as a private laboratory. Since 1949 it bears the name of Nikolai Gamaleya, a pioneer in Russian microbiology studies.

Gamaleya studied at the laboratory of French biologist Louis Pasteur in Paris and opened the world’s second vaccination station for rabies in Russia in 1886. In the 20th century, Gamaleya as one of the heads of the center fought epidemics of cholera, diphtheria and typhus and organized mass vaccination campaigns in the Soviet Union.

The center runs one of the unique “virus libraries” in the world and has its own vaccine production facility. Since the 1980s, the specialists of the Gamaleya Center led the effort to develop a technological platform using adenoviruses, initially extracted from human adenoids.

The Gamaleya Center successfully developed and registered in 2015 two vector-based vaccines against Ebola fever using the adenovirus vector platform. Another Ebola fever vaccine was registered in 2020. The vaccines have been officially approved for use by the Russian Health Ministry. About 2,000 people in Guinea received injections of Ebola vaccine in 2017-18 as part of Phase 3 clinical trial. Gamaleya Research Center received an international patent for Ebola vaccine.

Gamaleya Research Center used adenoviral vectors to develop vaccines against influenza and against Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). Both vaccines are currently in advanced stages of clinical trials.

Since 1997 Alexander Gintsburg, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, heads the Gamaleya Center.