New grant to UVM creates global infectious disease research center

The University of Vermont and its Larner College of Medicine have received a multi-million dollar award from the National Institutes of Health to create a new center that will develop new methods of preventing and controlling infectious diseases.

UVM officials announced that the NIH is allocating $ 12.3 million to a new biomedical research excellence center to create the "Global Translational Infectious Disease Research Center" at the college. Dr. Beth Kirkpatrick, Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics and Senior Research Scientist at the Center, said a multi-disciplinary effort would bring together researchers from faculties of medicine, engineering sciences and engineering. mathematics, as well as science of agriculture and life. "I think it's kind of a research accelerator. If there was a traditional technique of creating a new drug using new computer-based drug screening techniques, computer scientists could help us analyze and interpret it while using the expertise and the knowledge of biomedical scientists to determine the need and type of medication you may need. put together, it is a real accelerator for new products, new techniques and new tools. The idea of ​​a product could therefore be a new drug or an improved vaccine. The idea of ​​a tool can be a process or system in which you can predict a new outbreak and prevent it. Now, of course, it will take time. But that's kind of the stuff we're aiming for in this price. "

Professor Jason Bates, professor of medicine and co-principal investigator, expects innovative research to be done in the new center. "Through the full collaboration of data scientists, especially those studying so-called complex system studies and complex diseases, we hope to be at the forefront of international efforts to understand the entire picture. of a complex disease because it infects not only infected people but infected societies and even all affected countries. So it's really about pushing the boundaries. "

Bates adds that if UVM and its researchers have not invented the idea of ​​bringing together computational and biomedical sciences, this has to happen more. "We have a very unique opportunity to really succeed on the campus of the University of Vermont here because everything is so close to each other. Simple physical grouping immediately removes one of the biggest barriers to collaboration. We have also put in place a growing campus program, or campus culture, on interdisciplinary collaboration between the different colleges we operate. So we are quite ready to bring everyone together. Because the truth is that treating the problem of infectious diseases, the global infectious problem, is so complex that no one group can do it effectively alone. It takes a collaboration.

Kirkpatrick says the new center will build on the strengths of scientists in informatics and biomedicine to enable them to work together on infectious disease issues. "I think the most exciting thing about this award is the ability to leverage the data, the data produced by biomedical scientists, the data produced by epidemiologists, to examine them in a creative and innovative way, in order to invigorate how it works and what we explore and how we approach these issues in a way that has not been thought about yet. So it's really a great opportunity for us. It adds new tools and new creative thinking as a way to solve these global problems. "

This five-year grant is the fifth grant awarded by the NIH to the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence at the College of Medicine over the past 17 years.