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from the issue of October 6, 2005
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Virology center earns $10.6 million grant
One of Nebraska's premier research centers has received a second multi-million dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health. The Nebraska Center for Virology has received $10.6 million, which will support the center over the next five years.
The center links scientists engaged in studying viruses at Nebraska's three major biomedical research institutions: UNL, the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Creighton University.
Charles Wood, a molecular virologist and Lehr/3M University Professor at UNL, is principal investigator on the grant and center director. Howard Gendelman, director of UNMC's Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders, and James Van Etten, William Allington Distinguished Professor of Virology at UNL, co-direct the center. Clinton Jones, UNL virologist, is associate director.
"The common theme uniting our research is our attempt to understand the molecular mechanisms by which diverse viral infectious agents cause persistent or chronic diseases in humans, animals, and plants," Wood said. "Because persistent viruses maintain the ability to be reactivated and transmitted to new hosts, many emerging acute infections of humans and animals are likely to have originated from persistent, but as yet unidentified, specific host reservoirs."
Emerging and re-emerging viral infectious diseases such as SARS, West Nile, Ebola, and the monkeypox virus, together with the ongoing AIDS epidemic, show an urgent need for research on these persistent infections, Wood said.
The new grant allows the center's researchers to further studies in how pathogens, especially HIV, human herpesviruses, human papilloma virus, and prions, cause disease, interact with hosts and are transmitted. The goal is to find ways to treat and prevent infections.
The center currently supports 38 active members, 35 postdoctoral fellows, 62 graduate students, 30 undergraduates, and a number of research assistants. The new grant will fund hiring three additional scientists/faculty in viral immunology and molecular virology and support laboratory and other facilities.
A main component of the grant is the development of junior faculty. Among the projects that advance that goal are support of the primary research projects of four junior and one early career investigator; a program of mentoring by senior center and external researchers to help establish junior scientists as independent researchers; and support of three core facilities that provide technical expertise and equipment to center research projects and associates.
The Nebraska Center for Virology was established in 2000 as a Center for Biomedical Research Excellence with a five-year $10.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. At the time, it was the largest grant ever awarded to Nebraska by the NIH.
Prem Paul, vice chancellor for research at UNL, said the new grant is evidence of the significant contributions center scientists have made.
"The scientific contributions and accomplishments by center faculty were made possible, in part, by creating a center structure to link the state's biomedical research institutions, and by generating substantial institutional commitment to fulfill our goals," Paul said. "The center has changed the biomedical research landscape in Nebraska and energized a shift in the research culture toward inter-disciplinary, thematic, collaborative research."
The scientific and economic impact of the center on the state is tremendous, Paul said. Scientists associated with the center have attracted an additional $39 million in funding (over and above the original funding) since it was created. And the center served as a model for the three Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence that were established in Nebraska and for other multi-institutional research centers and programs.
New scientists hired in the past five years have expanded the center's research into the study of human cancer viruses such as papilloma virus, a major cause of cervical cancer; Epstein Barr virus, which is linked to lymphomas, neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's; animal viruses, such as porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus, a major problem in the swine industry and new arenas of HIV research, including the evolution of the highly virulent clade C virus in Africa and creation of a novel mouse model used in vaccine development.
The center also is broadening its international work. Wood conducts extensive research programs in Zambia focusing on the transmission of HIV from mothers to their infants, the relationship between HIV and Kaposi's sarcoma associated human herpesviurs, which is linked to cancer, and the evolution of HIV. As a part of this work, Wood has built a laboratory and clinic at the Teaching Hospital of the University of Zambia and developed close ties with scientists there. This work was the impetus for the recent memorandum of agreement between UNL and the University of Zambia to collaborate in research and teaching.
Training the next generation of virologists is a critical component of the center's mission; a highly successful program to train Zambian researchers for work on AIDS and HIV-1, funded by the Fogarty International Program, was expanded to China in 2003. And the center won a five-year $1.3 million NIH grant for research training in comparative viral pathogenesis for recruitment and training of U.S. graduate students, particularly those from minority and underrepresented groups.
The center's educational mission extends beyond the scientific community. Work by Wood and his colleague John West on the evolution of HIV is included in the Explore Evolution exhibit at the Nebraska State Museum, which was funded by the National Science Foundation.
GO TO: ISSUE OF OCTOBER 6
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