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SUNY joins group in plan to create regional biodefense center

Published: March 11, 2003

By DONNA LONGENECKER
Reporter Assistant Editor

SUNY has joined a consortium of academic institutions and government agencies in a proposal to create a regional center devoted to research on biodefense/biopreparedness, Bruce Holm, senior vice provost, told members of the Faculty Senate at their monthly meeting on March 4.

The Northeast Biodefense Center (NBC) would vie for funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the federal agencies sponsoring biodefense partnerships. The federal government set aside more than $1.8 billion for biodefense/biopreparedness research in the wake of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Holm, who was tapped by SUNY Chancellor Robert L. King to coordinate and represent SUNY-wide interests in biodefense issues, said that NIH/NIAID aims to create regional centers of excellence in biodefense, with New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands comprising Region II. Unlike several regions where individual states are vying for designation as the primary site for a biodefense center, the process of collaboration for the variety of stakeholders in Region II went fairly smoothly, with all of the warring factions pulling together to put together one application to the NIH, Holm said, adding that several institutions outside Region II also have joined the effort. The deadline for applications was in January.

"Everybody—all of the faculty on all of the campuses—agreed this was a good thing for faculty," said Holm, noting that the initiative also has received letters of support from the U.S. senators from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, as well as United Nation Secretary General Kofi Annan. A governance structure for the Northeast center already is in place should it receive funding.

Holm said the center would coordinate or conduct research and drug and technology delivery in the following areas:

  • Public health and medical informatics (sentinel programs and molecular epidemiology)

  • Sensor technology (detection and diagnostics) bioinformatics (novel practical microarrays and molecular modeling in silico biology)

  • Therapeutics (new methods of drug and vaccine delivery, vaccine modification/antigen-antibody interactions, molecular therapeutics)

The center would focus, in part, on select agents and toxins, Holm said, including anthrax, bubonic and pneumonic plagues, tularemia, glanders disease, Staphylococcus enterotoxin B (food-borne illness or aerosolized biological warfare agent) and pox viruses (viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever or encephalitis), as well as vaccine creation/modification.

Some of the 24 or so institutions participating in the consortium are UB, University at Albany, Stony Brook University, Syracuse Health Science Center, Yale School of Medicine, Columbia University, Cornell University, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Sandia National Laboratories, University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine and the Caribbean Primate Research Center.

Among the local, state and federal agencies that would be linked to the proposed center are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Brookhaven National Laboratories, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the departments of Health from the City and State of New York and State of New Jersey.

The NIAID, which announced the partnership grant program in response to growing concerns about the use of terror-related biological agents, has identified a list of high-priority products it wants to see developed, and the consortium's proposal meets all of the requirements for potential funding, Holm explained, noting that SUNY has been a key player in the creation of the consortium. He expressed confidence that the consortium would receive funding for the NBC—if not initially, then in later rounds of funding.

In other business at the meeting, the Faculty Senate approved a resolution callingfor university support of efforts to amend the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and a companion piece of proposed legislation, the Consumer Broadband and Digital Protection Act (CBTPA), and support the Digital Media's Consumers' Rights Act (DMCRA), an amendment of the DMCA. The resolution was proposed by John Ringland, professor of math and chair of the senate's Computer Services Committee, in response to concerns that the highly restrictive DMCA prevents the "direct, unmediated, unfettered access to information required for scholarship" by making it criminal and/or impossible to access information in any way other than what a content provider, such as a soft/hardware manufacturer or publisher, authorizes.

The senate tabled a second resolution introduced by Ringland that calls for university support of open source software and open communication standards. The resolution will be considered for action at the senate's next meeting on April 1.

To read the full text of both resolutions and Ringland's presentations on this issue, go to http://orange.math.buffalo.edu/csc/ .