F Marc LaForce
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F Marc LaForce | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6 June 1939 Berlin, NH, USA |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Group A meningococcal conjugate vaccine and role in the elimination of epidemic meningitis in Africa |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Public Health |
F Marc LaForce is a renowned public health expert who played a seminal role in the development and introduction of a new Group A meningococcal conjugate vaccine (MenAfriVac) that has eliminated Group A meningococcal disease in Africa.
Early life and education
Dr LaForce was born June 6, 1939 in Berlin, NH into a large French Canadian community that had emigrated from Canada to the United States in the early 1900’s. His father was an attorney and the LaForce family moved to Manchester, NH where he grew up attending bilingual parochial grammar and high schools.
Dr. LaForce graduated cum laude from St. Anselm College, Manchester, NH, in 1960 and he received his Doctor of Medicine degree in 1964 from Seton Hall College of Medicine and Dentistry, Jersey City, NJ. He completed his internal medicine and infectious disease training at the Harvard Service at Boston City Hospital. His US military service (1966-1968) was spent as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer (Meningitis and Special Pathogen Sections) at the US Communicable Diseases Center (renamed as the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta).
He is board-certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases and is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He has held teaching, research and administrative positions at Harvard Medical School, the University of Colorado School of Medicine and the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.
During his US academic career (1968-1999) Dr. LaForce devoted a significant amount of time working with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, CDC/Atlanta and USAID to develop and improve infant immunization programs in resource poor countries. In 1999 he resigned his professorship to devote the rest of his career working full time in international public health.
Career and research
From 2001 to 2012 he served as Founding Director of the Meningitis Vaccine Project, a Gates Foundation funded partnership between WHO and PATH that developed, tested, licensed, and introduced a new and affordable Group A meningococcal conjugate vaccine, MenAfriVac, in Sub-Saharan Africa. The vaccine was priced at $US 0.40 per dose and with GAVI support the vaccine was introduced at public health scale in 2010. As of December 2022, over 350 million Africans in 24 contiguous countries have received a dose of the vaccine and cases of Group A meningococcal meningitis have disappeared wherever the vaccine has been used. It is estimated that as many as 1 million cases of meningococcal disease have been prevented.
After retiring from PATH, Dr. LaForce served as Director, Technical Services for the Serum Institute of India from 2012 to 2022 where he concentrated on the development of affordable dengue, meningococcal and streptococcal vaccines for resource poor countries while continuing to support MenAfriVac introduction and impact assessment in Africa. He led the development of an affordable Africa-specific pentavalent A, C, Y, W, X meningococcal conjugate vaccine, MenFive, that was prequalified by WHO in 2023. This product will play an important role in the elimination of all non-Group A meningococcal disease in Africa as well as serving as a useful vaccine in the WHO effort to eliminate all global meningococcal epidemics by 2030.
Dr. LaForce currently holds the rank of Clinical Professor of Medicine at the NYU Langone School of Medicine in New York City and lectures at the Milken School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, DC.
Awards
The elimination of African Group A meningococcal epidemics has been recognized in the following awards: 2022 Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Makhoum Award for Medical Research Excellence in the field of Prevention [1]. The UAE award is “in recognition of your pioneering work to develop a new meningococcal vaccine - MenAfriVac”. 2017 Infectious Diseases Society of America’s D.A. Henderson Award for Outstanding Contributions to Public Health which “recognizes a lifetime of achievement in public health”.[2] 2012 Albert B Sabin Gold Medal “for exemplary contributions in the field of vaccinology and disease prevention”.[3]
Selected Publications
References
External links
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