| Schools join bioterror
research
Virginia Business
January 2004
Three
Virginia schools have been selected for a $350 million
effort by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
to develop defenses against bioterrorism. The University
of Virginia School of Medicine (Charlottesville), Virginia
Commonwealth University (Richmond) and Virginia Tech
(Blacksburg) were chosen to join 12 other schools in
the mid-Atlantic region to form a regional Center of
Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases
Research.
The mid-Atlantic consortium has more than 60 scientists
and will share $42 million in federal funding over the
five-year program. Its focus will be developing vaccines
against diseases such as anthrax and smallpox and emerging
infectious diseases such as West Nile Virus. Virginia
Tech’s Bioinformatics Institute will provide advanced
lab facilities for genomic research; VCU is devoting
nearly $1 million of the grant to study potential vaccines
for cryptosporidium parvum, a common parasite that is
a potentially deadly bioterror agent. The University
of Maryland leads the mid-Atlantic group.
Virginia
Business - January 2004
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