Vol. 23, No. 6, Sept. 18, 2002
Researchers join federal center to study infectious disease
Jim
Barlow, Life Sciences Editor
217-333-5802; jebarlow@uiuc.edu
9/5/03
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Nine
scientists of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign are part of a newly
created, federally funded Midwestern Regional Center of Excellence to be based
at the University of Chicago.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday the selection
of eight regional centers, which will be funded through the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of
Health. The eight centers will receive $350 million for the next five years.
The Midwestern Regional Center of Excellence (RCE) for Biodefense and Emerging
Infectious Diseases Research includes more than 300 researchers from 14 institutions,
including Illinois. The Midwestern Center will receive more than $7 million
a year for five years to apply the tools of modern science against infectious
disease.
“We will be collaborating with a large group of universities,” said
Brenda Wilson, a professor of microbiology
at Illinois and a member of the center’s executive committee. “We
will focus on the problem of bioterrorism, but our collaborations also will
serve as a priming mechanism preparing us for other potential new or emerging
infections that might come along. This will get us rolling on how to deal with
all of these types of infectious disease challenges.”
Funding for the Illinois participants will exceed $1 million a year, said Wilson,
whose expertise is the structure, function and biochemical action of bacterial
protein toxins, including diphtheria toxin, anthrax toxin and neurotoxins.
The Midwestern RCE will be headed by Olaf Schneewind, M.D., professor of molecular
genetics and cell biology at the University of Chicago, and Robert Murphy, M.D.,
professor of infectious diseases at Northwestern University Medical School.
Research will focus on the development of diagnostic, therapeutic and vaccine
products for anthrax, botulism, tularemia, hemorrhagic fever viruses, and plague.
At Illinois, Paul Bohn, a professor of chemistry,
will head a team looking at the detection of neurotoxins. Researchers will combine
techniques from microbiology and chemical and materials engineering to develop
sensitive devices than can discriminate tiny differences in neurotoxins. Working
with Bohn will be microbiologists Wilson and Mengfei Ho, Mark Shannon, a professor
of mechanical and industrial engineering,
and Jonathan Sweedler, a professor of chemistry.
Wilson and Ho also will be working on antitoxins in collaboration with researchers
at the Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwaukee) and the University of Wisconsin
at Madison. The group, headed by the Milwaukee team, will develop therapeutic
approaches such as vaccines against neurotoxins and post-exposure measures.
John Xu, a professor of microbiology, will be part of a team headed by researchers
at Michigan State University and Schneewind. They will study the immune system’s
response to Yersinia pestis (plague) and develop possible vaccines.
Neal Kelleher, professor of chemistry, Peter M. Yau, director of proteomics
at the biotechnology center, and
Sweedler will manage the center’s mass spectroscopy facility that will
be used when needed by collaborators from the participating institutions.
Joanna Shisler, professor of microbiology, will participate along with several
junior faculty members under a career development component of the program.
Shisler, a pox virologist, will study the mechanisms that make pox viruses work.
“Since the terrorist attacks on American soil in 2001, NIAID has moved
rapidly to bolster basic biomedical research and the development of countermeasures
to defend the United States against deliberately released agents of bioterrorism
as well as naturally occurring infectious diseases,” said Anthony S. Fauci,
M.D., NIAID director. “The new RCE program provides a coordinated and
comprehensive mechanism to support the interdisciplinary research that will
lead to new and improved therapies, vaccines, diagnostics and other tools to
protect the citizens of our country and the world against the threat of bioterrorism
and other emerging and re-emerging diseases.”
Each center comprises a lead institution and affiliated institutions located
primarily in the same geographical region. The eight lead institutions are:
Duke University, Harvard Medical School, New York State Department of Health,
University of Chicago, University of Maryland at Baltimore, University of Texas
Medical Branch (Galveston), University of Washington, and Washington University
in St. Louis.
In addition to the eight RCEs, NIAID is funding two Planning Grants for Regional
Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases. These
centers, based at the University of Iowa and the University of Minnesota, will
support training, planning, research development and resource acquisition that
could lead to the future establishment of a regional center.
The Midwestern Center’s members are the University of Chicago, Northwestern
University, Argonne National Laboratory, Battelle Memorial Institute, Illinois
Institute of Technology Research Institute, Mayo Clinic, Medical College of
Wisconsin, Michigan State University, Notre Dame University, Purdue University,
University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
More information is at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/biodefense.