Dr. Gregory A. Poland

Dr. Gregory A. Poland is a leading vaccinologist, physician, and infectious disease prevention expert. As the head of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group, his research focuses on understanding how genetics influence vaccine responses, applying sophisticated systems biology to study immunity, and developing novel vaccines against emerging pathogens that threaten public health.

Throughout his nearly 40 years at the Mayo Clinic, Dr. Poland has pioneered several key advances in vaccine science. His lab developed ways to study how a person’s genes affect their response to vaccines, mapped out how the immune system works together as an interconnected network, and created new methods to understand both how vaccines work and their potential side effects. 

In addition to his research and teaching responsibilities, Dr. Poland has advised four United States presidents on infectious disease prevention and biodefense, and has consulted for the Department of Defense, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At Atria, Dr. Poland serves as Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer and as President and Co-Director of the Atria Research Institute.

Dr. Poland’s path to medicine began early. After a childhood accident led to surgery at age 4, the procedure led to a fascination with medical science. Dr. Poland wanted to learn more about the human body, so by age 6, he set up his first lab in his family’s basement, and these early experiments solidified his desire to help people through medicine.

Dr. Poland built his scientific foundation at Illinois Wesleyan University, where he earned his B.A. in Biology, before completing his M.D. at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. His training continued at the University of Minnesota/Abbott-Northwestern Hospital, where he completed his internal medicine residency and served as Chief Resident, followed by a year of infectious disease training. At Mayo Clinic he did graduate work in biostatistics, clinical study design, and epidemiology. 

During his residency, Dr. Poland experienced a series of remarkable events that shaped his focus on infectious disease prevention. First, Dr. Poland fell ill from a severe case of influenza A. Shortly thereafter, he witnessed a baby nearly die with subsequent loss of hearing due to Hib meningitis and an older patient develop tetanus after a fall in his backyard. All three cases could have been prevented with vaccines. “Back then, doctors and patients did not value prevention and vaccines the way they did the newest powerful antibiotics,” Dr. Poland says. At the time, his residency program did not have a vaccinology fellowship, so he created one. 

In 1988, Dr. Poland joined the Mayo Clinic, where he built out his lab and pioneered several areas of vaccine science, including the genetic factors that make vaccines more or less effective. He also developed the field of personalized vaccinology, in which scientists can use someone’s genetics to design an individualized vaccine optimized for the best response. Dr. Poland has published more than 800 scientific papers and book chapters and brought in over $250 million in federal research funding, making his Vaccine Research Group the largest laboratory at the Mayo Clinic.

For Dr. Poland, educating the public and answering questions about vaccines is crucial to preventing infectious diseases. “I take it as a personal mission to build trust,” he says. After four years of seminary and two more years of study, in 2024 Dr. Poland was officially ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, and he currently serves as an assistant pastor at a church in Florida. “We are not just physical beings. We are social beings, we are psychological beings, and we are also spiritual beings,” Dr. Poland says. “We have something to learn from everyone.”

Building on his decades of work in prevention, Dr. Poland joined Atria to help transform health care’s fundamental approach. “We are trying to build something that has never been built before,” he says. “Atria is pioneering what many call medicine 3.0—shifting health care from treating illness after it occurs to maintaining wellness through prevention.” 

Dr. Poland lives in South Florida with his wife, where he teaches adult Sunday school, preaches at his church, runs, bikes, and lifts weights for exercise, and still spends time working at his Mayo Clinic lab. He also regularly chairs influential scientific meetings and is a sought-after public speaker.