GALVESTON, Texas - The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded a five-year, $10.9 million contract to the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to establish the Clinical Proteomics Center for Infectious Diseases and Biodefense. Researchers at the center will analyze human blood and other tissue samples from completed or ongoing clinical studies with the aim of discovering proteins that could serve as biomarkers of infectious disease.
"The Clinical Proteomics Center is a great distinction for the University of Texas Medical Branch, being the only center in the United States to be funded," said Dr. Allan Brasier, the center's principal investigator. "We are very excited about this opportunity to build on our extensive proteomics expertise and translate these technologies to better diagnose and manage infectious diseases."
Scientists at the new NIAID-funded center will look for proteins produced either by disease-causing agents or by the immune system in response to infection. According to the NIAID, identifying new biomarkers that are present in infected people will help researchers understand how microbes cause disease, which could guide development of diagnostics, therapies or vaccines.
The first disease to be studied at UTMB's new center will be dengue hemorrhagic fever, a viral illness spread by mosquitoes, which is making a resurgence in many parts of the world, according to Brasier.
"Although dengue fever is usually mild, a small subset of individuals develops a shock-like syndrome with hemorrhage," he said. "We will initially be seeking biomarkers that identify those individuals who will have adverse outcomes, so that earlier interventions can be made to improve their health."
Once discovered and characterized, any candidate biomarkers found by the center's scientists will be made freely available to other research communities for further development.
The center also will encourage clinical infectious disease researchers from other institutions to submit clinical samples to be assessed for the presence of potential biomarker proteins. This service will be provided at no charge to the requestors.
NIAID conducts and supports research - at NIH, throughout the United States and worldwide - to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses.
The National Institutes of Health includes 27 institutes and centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov/.
UTMB is a major academic health center dedicated to improving lives through health sciences education, clinical care and biomedical research. The university has six hospitals in Galveston, 90 campus- and community-based clinics, and four schools: Medical, nursing, allied health sciences and a graduate school for biomedical sciences. UTMB is the lead institution for the Western Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases and is the site of the Galveston National Laboratory, one of only two national biocontainment laboratories. Last year UTMB had $156 million in research expenditures with $105 million in NIH funding. Major research and patient care initiatives include a cancer center, a transplant center, molecular cardiology, burns care, neurology and the neurosciences, infectious disease, and women's and children's health. The university is the seventh largest employer among those headquartered in the Houston/Galveston region with approximately 12,000 employees and a $1.4 billion budget. For more information, visit the UTMB Web site at http://www.utmb.edu/.