The Institute is founded in 1958 and integrates basic medical research with development and production of biological products. It is mainly involved in basic and applied research in these fields: medical virology, immunology, molecular biological technology, medical genetics, molecular epidemiology, experimental zoology and animal experimental technology with primate, large-scale production of vaccines, immunological and genetic engineering products. It is “WHO Collaborative and Research Center on Enteroviruses”, as well as master’s and doctor’s degree conferring unit of the Peking Union Medical College (Medical School of Tsinghua University).
The Institute has a long history of producing biological products. It is the largest research and production base for live attenuated oral poliomyelitis vaccine (OPV) in China. From the 1960s when the OPV is licensed to now, more than 50 billion doses have been supplied to the national Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI), which reduces the incidence of poliomyelitis from 3.18/100000 reported at the end of the 1960s to no case report caused by wild strain from 1995 to now, and makes a great contribution to the control and eradication of poliomyelitis in China. The Institute is the largest research and production base for hepatitis A vaccines (HAV) as well. From the 1992 when the HAV is licensed to now, more than 1 billion doses have been supplied to the Chinese market, which plays an essential role in controlling the prevalence, outbreaks and reducing the incidence of hepatitis A in China.
