In April 2020, the National Cancer Institute and the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research built the Serological Sciences Network (SeroNet) on the foundation of the HPV Serology Program in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. SeroNet develops high-quality serology technologies and standards to better understand the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccines. 

The FNL Vaccine, Immunity, and Cancer Directorate manages the SeroNet Coordinating Center, facilitating collaborations and providing key resources and training to all SeroNet investigators, external partners, and subcontracted Capacity Building Centers.  The Coordinating Center manages the reference materials program, specimen collections, and data from the network, and ensures the published SeroNet research is curated and made available to the research community via ImmPort. 

Coordinated team science tackles complex scientific problems

This work has developed a resource for current and future investigations into the immune system response to vaccination and SARS-CoV-2 infection in healthy and immunocompromised populations. Standards and coordinated team research with harmonized sample collection, standardized testing, and data collection methods are the foundation for rigorous research to understand how SARS-CoV-2 vaccines protect healthy individuals, people with cancer, and other immunocompromised patients.  

Building infrastructure to enable collaboration and discovery

The SeroNet program team works to ensure the valuable research, technologies, samples, and data gleaned from the pandemic is integrated to gain a better understanding of immune responses to virus and vaccination and, ultimately, to inform public health decisions. 

Sharing published COVID-19 research with scientific community 

More than 380 publications produced by the SeroNet community, curated papers, and data are available to the public via ImmPort.  

Explore SeroNet publications

Collaboration Opportunities

VICD laboratories collaborate with partners across the globe. We have established strong technological capabilities and resources that support pre-clinical and clinical studies in immunology with in-house validated assays that generated a wealth of data in high-impact studies.

We work closely with National Institutes of Health and centers worldwide that are interested in conducting studies from preclinical to clinical trials, in vaccine development, assay development and validations, and critical reagents acquisition. VICD engages with external centers through partnership mechanisms, which are primarily Material Transfer Agreements (MTAs) and Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA).

To connect or collaborate with VICD, contact Bo Park, Director, Administrative and Finance.

A scientist uses a multi-pipette
Collaborative Initiative

Serological Sciences Network

The National Cancer Institute’s Serological Sciences Network (SeroNet) is the nation’s largest coordinated effort to study the immune response to COVID-19 and increase the nation’s antibody testing capacity.
Learn more about SeroNet
Pandemic preparedness effort

From HPV to COVID-19 and beyond: Leveraging the power of serology and standards

FNL’s rapid COVID response is a model to address future pandemics.
COVID-19 pandemic response

FDA partnership to evaluate COVID-19 antibody tests

Our team validated COVID-19 test kits before they entered U.S. market.

Leveraging the power of SeroNet  

The team is monitoring the durability of immune responses to infection and the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in healthy and immunocompromised populations and making acquired collections of serum and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) available to the SeroNet community to address novel questions using new scientific technologies and rigorous study design.  

Harmonization of clinical laboratory data 

Data infrastructure developed to collect and harmonize data from biospecimens to enable search and use by SeroNet investigators. 

  • Data standardization and harmonization 

  • Application development to facilitate query of biospecimens and data 

  • Facilitation and optimization of study designs for the SeroNet investigators 

Unique biospecimen collections  

The Coordinating Center obtained a large volume collection of sera and PBMCs from healthy individuals to build reference materials. In addition, a longitudinal study conducted in healthy, autoimmune, and cancer patients and people living with HIV evaluated the durability of immune responses to infection and vaccination. 

  • Coordination of storage and distribution of biospecimens 

  • Database development for biospecimen clinical and laboratory data 

  • Data harmonization and ingestion 

Data from SeroNet publications available through NIAID’s ImmPort 

The SeroNet Data Coordinating Center ensures original data from SeroNet-funded publications are accessible to the public. 

  • Standardization of data curation process for public sharing 

  • Development and implementation of standardized study descriptors to enable unique searches in the field of SARS-CoV-2 immunology