Biodesign Institute receives $3.2 million NIAID grant for biothreat vaccine
Summary:
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) has awarded a $2.3 million grant to Stephen Albert Johnston and Kathryn F. Sykes of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University.
Full Story:
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) has awarded a $2.3 million grant to Stephen Albert Johnston and Kathryn F. Sykes of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University.
The pair will develop a vaccine for the disease tularemia, commonly known as "rabbit fever." The bacterium that causes the disease, Francisella tularensis, is a potential biothreat with no effective vaccine to counter it.
Biodesign's Center for Innovations in Medicine, which is led by Johnston, will divide the research into two projects. Sykes, an assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences, will use the center's gene-building technology to make the bacteria's key constituent proteins and test them to determine their ability to elicit a good immune response.
Johnston's project will use technology he developed with his colleagues to measure the gene expression of bacterium in a host's lungs. The researchers will map the gene expression during infection to detect the best genes in the pathogen for use in a vaccine.
Gene expression is the process by which the information in a gene is used to create proteins.
Both projects take advantage of the recently completed sequencing of tularemia's genome.
The two projects are part of a $24.8 million consortium led by the University of New Mexico. Other members include California-based Cerus Corporation, New Mexico's Lovelace Respiratory Research Institute, and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
NIAID is part of the National Institutes of Health.
For more information:
"Biodesign Institute awarded $3.2 million to develop vaccine to thwart biothreat," Biodesign Institute press release, 12/07/2005