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UB is partner in biodefense center
By JOHN DELLA CONTRADA
Contributing Editor
The university has been selected to partner in the research initiatives of the new Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (RCE) to be established at the New York State Department of Health in Albany.
Creation of eight RCEs throughout the U.S. was announced on Sept. 4 by Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HSS). The nationwide group of multidisciplinary centers is a key element in the HSS strategic plan for biodefense research.
The centers will receive grants totaling approximately $350 million over five years. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health, is providing the grants and will administer the RCE program.
The RCE at the New York State Department of Health in Albany will coordinate biodefense and infectious disease research among affiliated institutions from a region of the U.S. designated as Section 2, which includes New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
UB's RCE research will focus primarily on development of vaccines to combat biological agents and infectious diseases, as well as development of new therapies and antibiotics to treat exposure to bioagents and infectious diseases, according to Iain Hay, professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
The research will involve several UB faculty, including Hay; Edward Niles, professor of microbiology and biochemistry; Jeffrey Skolnick, director of the UB Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics, and Norma Nowak, director of scientific planning for the Center of Excellence.
"While the RCEs originally were proposed in response to the anthrax attacks after 9/11, emerging infectious diseases—such as SARS and West Nile—have made work on the infectious disease front just as pressing as work on bioterrorism," Hay says.
"Buffalo's proximity to Canada, with its recent SARS problems, makes our work on infectious disease particularly timely," he adds.
As an affiliated RCE institution, UB will share in some of the NIAID funding received by the New York State Department of Health, according to Hay, who helped write the grant application submitted by the Department of Health.
The exact amount of funding UB will receive is not yet known. As an affiliated RCE institution, UB also will be eligible for additional NIAID funding for its infectious diseases-related work, Hay says.
In addition to UB, other RCE affiliated institutions in Section 2 include Cornell University, Columbia University, New York University, Mount Sinai College of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, University of Puerto Rico, Rockefeller University, University of Rochester and Stony Brook University.
Research to be conducted in the RCE program nationwide includes:
Developing new approaches to blocking the action of anthrax, botulinum and cholera toxins
Developing new vaccines against anthrax, plague, tularemia, smallpox and Ebola
Developing new antibiotics and other therapeutic strategies
Studying bacterial and viral disease processes
Designing new advanced diagnostic approaches for biodefense and for emerging diseases
Conducting immunological studies of diseases caused by potential agents of bioterrorism
Developing computational and genomic approaches to combating disease agents
Creating new immunization strategies and delivery systems