UCI given $45M for disease research

The federal government has awarded UCI $45 million for infectious disease research.

The grant is the largest in the university’s history, according to spokesman Tom Vasich.

It will fund the Pacific-Southwest Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research, which plans to spend the money to study and develop treatments for dengue fever, botulism and a variety of other deadly conditions.

The center, which was founded in 2005 with a $40-million federal grant, is run by UCI researcher Alan Barbour.

Since its formation in response to terrorist threats surrounding 9/11 like anthrax, the center’s focus has shifted away from biological warfare and more toward new diseases.

“I think the general trend is that nothing has happened after those large events of 2001,” Barbour said. “Now the government sees there is as much if not greater risk with something like SARS, avian flu or more recently this swine flu.”

The center is one of 11 sites federally funded to counter bioterrorism and emerging infections.

Although the center is based at UCI, it includes researchers from around the region.

One of the main focuses is on diagnosing illnesses quickly so that therapies can be developed before outbreaks become epidemics, according to the center’s Deputy Director Michael Buchmeier.

A group from City of Hope medical center, for instance, has developed a more sensitive, rapid diagnosis for botulism — a toxin that can cause paralysis and death in very small doses — and the researchers are preparing it for review by the Food and Drug Administration.

It could be used clinically in one to two years, Barbour said.

To get the grant, the center had to beat out several competing research organizations, but it also had to turn away more than half of the researchers who wanted to join in the center’s grant proposal.

“We had our own internal competition to be on the grant. Even that was quite strenuous,” Barbour said.

Interested contributors had to show that their research not only was promising, but also that it could be worked into collaborative efforts with other members of the group. Of the roughly 30 participants in the group, about six or seven work for UCI, according to Barbour.