Message from Ian Gatley, Director of the Center for Student Innovation and Undergraduate Research Support About fifteen years ago, the Chemistry department of Rochester Institute of Technology initiated a summer undergraduate symposium with the intention of promoting research activity in talented young students. It started off as a two hour session that gradually increased over the years into a full day activity with four parallel sessions that included a poster session. Now it is an activity of the entire Institute, with students of several colleges participating.

	Key Note Speaker Michael Pichichero, M.D. Director, Research Institute Rochester General Health System (RGHS)
"The Road to the First Meningitis Vaccine for Children"
Abstract: In the early 1980s a team of scientists came to the University of Rochester to develop the first vaccine to prevent the most common type of spinal meningitis in children. Another team at the National Institutes of Health sought the same goal. The "competition" was friendly and cooperative between the two groups. Discovery of pioneering immunology work from the 1930s was the key that opened the door to success and established a new vaccine technology called conjugate vaccines. A renaissance in vaccine discovery has followed and continues to boom. The bacteria was Haemophilus influenze type b, nicknamed Hib and Hib is now essentially wiped out from the U.S. and developed world.