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NIH awards funding to three universities for Zika research
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Three universities have been awarded more than $4 million in research funding by the NIH to study the Zika virus, according to multiple press releases.
The Vaccine Treatment and Evaluation Unit at Baylor College of Medicine, Saint Louis University School of Medicine and Emory University School of Medicine will conduct research to study the infection and immune responses of Zika virus to learn diagnostic and infection control measures and vaccine development for the virus.
Researchers at Baylor, which received more than $1 million in funding, and Emory, awarded $1.7 million, will enroll 200 volunteers, aged 15 years and older, from areas where the virus is circulating locally, according to a release. All participants, with suspected or confirmed Zika virus, must be referred by their PCPs or their local health department before volunteering.
Those universities, along with Saint Louis University, which received $1.3 million in funding, will analyze the participants’ blood specimens for three objectives specific to the sites. They will:
- characterize immune responses (Mark J. Mulligan, MD, distinguished professor of medicine at Emory University);
- understand the cell-mediated immune response (Daniel Hoft, MD, PhD, director of the division of infectious diseases at Saint Louis University);
- and determine where the virus is in the body and how long it stays in the fluids through quantitative PCR testing (Kristy Murray, DVM, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine).
Saint Louis University’s Daniel Hoft, MD, PhD, Mei Xia, PhD, and Azra Blazevic, DVM, will be conducting NIH-funded research on the natural history of Zika.
Source: Photo by Saint Louis University
“Understanding the natural history of the disease and the body’s immune response could help researchers identify targets for treatments and vaccines, other strategies for protection and potential long-term health effects of the virus,” Hoft said in one of the releases.