| Alan G. Barbour, M.D. University of California - Irvine | | Transmission-blocking Vaccines Against Arthropod Vectors
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
Several insects and ticks transmit infectious agents to humans through their saliva while
they feed on the host's blood. During and after this time, these arthropods are susceptible
to antibodies and other substances in the blood that are taken into the midguts of their
intestinal tracts. If there is disruption of the midgut, this... (more) |
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| William Bishai, M.D., Ph.D. Johns Hopkins School of Public Health | | Transmission Blocking Vaccines for Tuberculosis
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is an obligate human pathogen whose
only significant reservoir is the human host. Of the 6 billion world
inhabitants, 2 billion are infected with latentM. tb. and approximately 8
million have active, transmissible tuberculosis. A strategy to block
transmission from the 8 million active cases to the 4... (more) |
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| Jon Clardy, Ph.D. Harvard Medical School | | New Antibiotics from Environmental DNA
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
Cultured soil microbes provide many of our most important drugs including the
antibiotics erythromycin and vancomycin, the immunosuppressive drugs FK506
and rapamycin, and the anticancer agents mitomycin C and actinomycin D, among
many others. Culturing soil microbes is still a useful way to discover new medicinal
agents, but rediscovery rates are... (more)(Research for the first 1˝ years was conducted at Cornell University.) |
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| Peter Cresswell, Ph.D. Yale University School of Medicine | | Antiviral Effects of Interferon-Inducible Cytosolic Proteins
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
It has been known for decades that a natural resistance mechanism for viral
infections involves the production of interferons by infected cells. This family of
antiviral molecules acts upon other cells to make them resistant to viral infection.
Interferons induce the expression of a large number of molecules in the... (more) |
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| Stanley Falkow, Ph.D. Stanford University School of Medicine | | The Natural History of Typhoid Infection in Vietnam
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
The goal of the research is to examine the differences in typhoid bacilli causing
acute typhoid fever as compared to the bacteria isolated from chronic typhoid
carriers in Vietnam. One further component of our proposed work will be to
obtain peripheral blood from patients suffering from acute typhoid fever to
determine if there is a distinct pattern of host cell statement in these individuals that
correlates with clinical outcomes. These data can be profitably compared with
in-vitro studies of bacterial interaction with cultured human activated
monocytes-macrophage cell lines. |
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| Gerald R. Fink, Ph.D. Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research | | The Role of Quorum Sensing in Fungal Disease
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
Fungal infections have emerged as a worldwide problem of appalling dimensions
because of the AIDS epidemic. Although fungi of all types afflict
immunocompromised individuals, Candida albicans is the most frequent cause of
disease. One key to Candida’s pathogenesis is its ability to switch from a yeast
form to a filamentous form. This... (more) |
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| Lee Gehrke, Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | Exploiting an Evolutionary Omission in Pathogenic RNA Viruses: Understanding the Advantages of BeingNon-polyadenylated
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
The identification of features that are pathogen-specific and sensitive to therapeutic
agents is fundamental to treating infectious human diseases. This proposal focuses
on a feature common to a wide range of pathogenic RNA viruses: the absence of
poly(A) tails on the viral... (more) |
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| Keith A. Joiner, M.D. University of Arizona |
| Elisabetta Ullu, Ph.D. Yale University School of Medicine | | Development of New Genetic Tools to Identify Nutrient Uptake Pathways in Malaria Parasites
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
The rapid spreading of Plasmodium falciparum strains that are resistant to
current antimalarial therapy has focused the attention of the research community on
the urgent need to identify new therapeutic targets, leading to novel therapies. Our
laboratories have a long-standing commitment to... (more) (Research for the first 3 years was conducted in collaboration with Dr. Elisabetta Ullu at Yale University School of Medicine.) |
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| William R. Jacobs, Jr., Ph.D. Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University | | Development of Genetic Systems for Genetically Intractable Organisms
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
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| W. Ian Lipkin, M.D. Columbia University | | Pandora's Box Project
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
The goal of this project is to establish rapid, sensitive methods for virus detection,
and apply them in global networks for infectious disease surveillance and pathogen
discovery.
Genome projects and high throughput methods for profiling gene statement using
cDNAs and oligonucleotides have revolutionized biology by providing tools for
simultaneous assessment of... (more) |
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Richard M. Locksley, M.D. University of California - San Francisco | | Optimizing Immunity to Complex Pathogens In Vivo
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
This research involves mechanisms that lead to secretion of certain types of
molecules, termed cytokines, that activated lymphocytes make in mediating
protective immunity. Funding from the Ellison Medical Foundation will enable the
establishment of mice engineered to express genetically marked cytokine genes
that allow activated cells to be... (more) |
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| David A. Relman, M.D. Stanford University School of Medicine, VA Palo Alto Health Care System | | The Human Intestinal Microbiome: Community Analysis, Host Response, and Role in Chronic Disease
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
Our understanding of the microorganisms that inhabit the human body is woefully
inadequate. The diversity, abundance, and activities of these microorganisms are
all matters of both importance and ignorance. This might seem surprising given that
the human body contains far more microbial cells... (more) |
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| Iwona Stroynowski, Ph.D. University of Texas Southwest Medical Center | | Exploring Novel Pathways of Immune Defenses Against Orally Ingested Pathogens: Analysis of Nonclassical Class I MHC Antigens in Mouse Intestines
2001 Senior Scholar Award in Global Infectious Disease
Present-day research in immunology is overwhelmingly preoccupied with systemic immune responses
and immune mechanisms that operate in infected hosts after the pathogens have already spread from
their initial site of entry into the circulation.... (more) |
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