Rochester Confronts Dual Threat: $11.9 Million Grant Addresses Natural Disasters and Bioterrorism
The University of Rochester Medical Center has been awarded a five-year research contract worth approximately $11.9 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This contract is part of a program project grant led by Deborah Fowell at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
The research project, focusing on the mechanics of immune cell migration related to flu viruses and immune responses, will be a collaborative effort involving several teams. Patrick Oakes' lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center will contribute by studying how immune cells move and function in relation to infectious diseases such as influenza. Alan Perelson, Ph.D., and Ruy Riberio, Ph.D., of the Los Alamos National Laboratory are also part of the research team.
The University of Rochester Medical Center's Center for Biodefense Immune Modeling has great synergy with other flu-related projects at the Medical Center, including the New York Influenza Center of Excellence, the Center for Biodefense of Immunocompromised Populations, and the Health Sciences Center for Computational Innovation.
The contract is for research into using computer modeling to boost human immune responses against various potentially lethal viruses. The Rochester's Division of Biomedical Modeling and Informatics will provide modeling, statistics, and bioinformatics support to several large biomedical research projects at the Medical Center.
The research will focus on studying how the immune system responds to flu vaccines, with the aim of uncovering why some people have a good response and others don't. David Topham, Ph.D., co-director of the New York Influenza Center of Excellence, states that Rochester has a long-standing clinical infrastructure and an outstanding track record in vaccine research.
The research team, led by Wu and Zand, will begin a study this year collecting blood samples from people after receiving the seasonal flu vaccine for 11 days. They will use data from mice and humans to simulate different flu scenarios and test medical interventions.
The Center for Biodefense Immune Modeling at the Medical Center is being renewed under this contract, which was initially funded with a $10 million contract in 2005. Between 2005 and 2015, total funding for these projects is approximately $64 million.
Using models and simulations is commonplace in many industries, such as the auto and airline industries, and is now being adopted in biomedical research to gather information that will help scientists design the most effective vaccines and therapies in the shortest amount of time. This NIH program differs from past NIH-funded immunology research by its emphasis on mathematical modeling, combined with cutting-edge immunology experiments and the development of new computational tools for immunology research.
The detailed data will be used to create models that predict responses to current and future flu vaccines in mice and potentially in people. The research team will do a similar study in mice and compare the human and animal data to gain valuable information about responses to flu vaccines.
In addition to the University of Rochester Medical Center, the NIAID also awarded contracts to three other centers as part of the Immune Modeling for Biodefense program: Mount Sinai Medical Center School of Medicine, Duke University, and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
- The collaboration between the University of Rochester Medical Center and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, focused on immune cell migration for medical-conditions like flu viruses, might potentially gain insights that can be applied in finance for planning and investment in vaccine research and development.
- The University of Rochester Medical Center's research on using computer modeling to boost human immune responses against various medical-conditions, such as lethal viruses, shares a resemblance with the approach employed in industries like automotive and aviation, demonstrating the growing significance of simulations in both finance and biomedical research.
