- Hello Jeff - My thanks to a poster to my clickitnews
Emerging Diseases message board for this important story.
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- This is the second one in the last month.
There's one in Texas recently, too - BioSafety Level 4
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- Patty
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- CSU Is Awarded $40 Million Grant
Funds For Research On Bioterrorism, Disease
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- By Jim Erickson
- Rocky Mountain News
- 6-2-5
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- Colorado State University was awarded a four-year, $40
million federal grant Wednesday to develop treatments and vaccines for
bioterrorism agents and infectious diseases, such as plague and hantavirus.
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- The grant from the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases is the largest single research award in the school's
history. It will establish a regional center for the study of animal diseases
that can affect humans - so-called zoonotic diseases.
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- One major goal is to get new diagnostic tests, treatments
and vaccines to market quickly by encouraging partnerships between university
researchers and industry, said CSU microbiologist Barry Beaty.
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- "We're going to have the facilities and the know-how
to move discovery into usable products in a hurry," said Beaty, who
will lead the Rocky Mountain Regional Center of Excellence.
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- The new center is not a building.
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- It is a research consortium including five other universities,
federal laboratories, small business partners, and hospitals in the Rocky
Mountain region.
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- Consortium members will study various pathogens at a
$22 million biocontainment laboratory to be built on CSU's Foothills Campus,
west of downtown Fort Collins.
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- Groundbreaking for that project, which is funded mainly
by a $16.6 million NIAID grant, is expected within a year.
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- Wednesday's $40 million grant will pay for the research
to be done at the new lab. The funds will pay for laboratory equipment,
researchers' salaries and supplies, among other things.
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- The new lab will be a Biosafety Level 3 facility.
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- Infectious disease labs are designated by biosafety levels
1 through 4. The most dangerous, exotic pathogens - such as Ebola or Marburg
viruses - require BSL-4 labs.
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- BSL-3 labs are required for microbes with the potential
for aerosol transmission. They feature specialized ventilation systems
to minimize the chances of release.
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- The diseases to be studied in the new lab could include:
West Nile virus, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, hantavirus pulmonary syndrome,
plague, drug-resistant tuberculosis, tularemia, glanders, melioidosis and
Q fever.
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- In many cases, the studies will build on existing zoonotic-disease
programs at Colorado State and its neighbor, the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention laboratory on the Foothills Campus.
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- The study of vector-borne diseases - those transmitted
by mosquitoes and other insects - has been a focus of research at Colorado
State and the Fort Collins CDC lab for decades.
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- "What's happened here in Fort Collins is that we
probably have the strongest group of scientists in vector-borne and zoonotic
diseases anywhere in the world," said Dr. Lyle Petersen, director
of the CDC's Fort Collins lab.
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- Some of the bacteria and viruses to be studied in the
new Colorado State BSL-3 lab are potential bioterrorism threats. Others
are not.
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- West Nile virus and hantaviruses are unlikely bioweapons,
for example.
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- But plague, tularemia, Venezuelan equine encephalitis,
glanders, melioidosis and Q fever are considered bioterrorism threats by
the U.S. government.
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- "The laboratory is being built to provide facilities
that will allow this work to be done safely and securely," said Rona
Hirschberg, a senior program officer at the NIAID.
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- "Many of these could be used as agents of bioterrorism
and we don't, at the moment, have really good defenses against them,"
she said.
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- Petersen said funds from the new center will encourage
drug companies to pursue vaccines that otherwise might be ignored - a new
plague vaccine, for example.
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- "A vaccine company is not going to invest tens of
millions of dollars into vaccine development for something with a relatively
small market," Petersen said.
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- "Part of the reason for this money, actually, is
to provide some federal funding for these kinds of activities," he
said.
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- CSU joins eight other universities, medical schools and
state health departments that won NIAID grants to establish regional biodefense
and infectious disease centers.
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- "Since the 2001 anthrax attacks, the United States
has been at risk for a bioterror attack," said NIAID Director Dr.
Anthony Fauci. "With these grants, a key element in our strategic
plan to counter bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases is now complete."
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- The other centers are led by: University of California,
Irvine; Duke University; Harvard Medical School; New York State Department
of Health; University of Chicago; University of Maryland; University of
Texas Medical Branch, Galveston; University of Washington; and Washington
University.
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- http://www.rockymountainnews.com
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- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board.
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- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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