Spotlight
$15-million Federal Award Creates Research Center on Smallpox
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has announced that it will base one of five Cooperative Centers for Translational Research on Human Immunology and Biodefense at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, supporting work on a safer smallpox vaccine. The NIAID award of $15.1 million over four and a half years will fund investigation into vaccinia virus, the basis of the vaccine against smallpox, to probe its effect on the immune system and to blunt the smallpox virus as a potential bioterrorist weapon."The aim of our research is to understand, in precise detail, the nature of the human immune system's response to the vaccinia virus and to other related viruses that potentially could be used as vaccines," said DFCI's Ellis Reinherz, the principal investigator of the grant and an HMS professor of medicine. "Once we determine the mechanism by which the vaccine builds immunity and, in some cases, produces complications, we'll be in a position to develop effective alternatives that carry fewer risks."
In addition to Reinherz, the cooperative center's project leaders are Raphael Dolin, dean for academic and clinical programs at HMS and the Maxwell Finland professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital; Jerome Ritz, HMS professor of medicine at Dana-Farber; Thomas Kupper, the Thomas B. Fitzpatrick professor of dermatology at BWH; Elliott Kieff, the Harriet Ryan Albee professor of medicine at BWH; and Raymond Welsh, professor of pathology and of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester.
The four other centers in the federal program, whose total award is $85 million, are the University of Massachusetts Medical School; Emory University School of Medicine; Baylor Research Institute, Dallas; and Stanford University School of Medicine.
Together, the investigators in the cooperative program will form a biodefense research network with a focus on the human immune system. Among the general goals are greater understanding of the immune response to potential agents of bioterror and rapid development of countermeasures like vaccines and therapies. Efforts will include developing new technologies to probe immune function within the ethical limits of human experimentation and devising imaging techniques for noninvasive, real-time views of the body reacting to vaccination or infection.