UB Scientist Receives $1.5 Million to Continue Quest For Vaccine Against Ear-Infection-Causing Bacterium

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Timothy F. Murphy, M.D., professor of medicine and microbiology in the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, has received a five-year $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to continue development of a vaccine against a bacterium responsible for 3.5 million childhood ear infections annually in the U.S.

The bacterium, Moraxella catarrhalis, also is responsible for about 30 percent of lung infections that develop in adults with chronic bronchitis and emphysema. With the new grant, Murphy will study two specific outer-membrane proteins of the bacterium to determine if they will be effective as the basis for vaccines and to understand how the vaccines could be created.

Murphy, who also serves as chief of infectious diseases with the VA Western New York Healthcare System, has been conducting NIH-sponsored research for 10 years in his VA laboratories into possible vaccines to protect against bacterial ear infections.

His work has resulted in four new U.S. patents in the past two years and earned him the 1998 Niagara Frontier Inventor of the Year Award, bestowed last month by the Technical Societies Council of the Niagara Frontier.

Murphy also won the award in 1992 for his patent for a vaccine against another bacterium, Haemophilis influenzae, also implicated in middle-ear infections.

Ear infections are the most common reason for visits to pediatricians, and the most common condition for which antibiotics are administered to children. Statistics indicate that 80 percent of all children experience a middle-ear infection by the age of 3. Repeated ear infections can cause hearing loss, which in young children can lead to delayed language development and learning disabilities. Moraxella catarrhalis causes about 15 percent of all ear infections.

"Vaccines to prevent ear infections would go a long way to relieving the pain and suffering that children and their families experience and would help prevent learning disabilities," Murphy said.

Adults with emphysema and bronchitis also could benefit from a vaccine against this bacterium, Murphy noted. "People with these illnesses experience periodic infections, and about 30 percent of these infections are caused by Moraxella catarrhalis. These infections lead to hospitalizations in these patients and are a significant cause of death."