NIH/NIAID Services and Resources for the Global Influenza Research Community
Session III – Grossman, Sonnie Kim
Title of Contribution: NIH/NIAID Services and Resources for the Global Influenza Research Community
Author(s): SK Grossman 1, V Di Francesco1, CA Macken2, RH Scheuermann3
Affiliation(s): 1National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA 2Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA; 3University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, USA;
Abstract:
Over the last several years, preparedness efforts to develop new diagnostic tests, vaccines, and drugs have for influenza have greatly expanded. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) through its Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) has expanded its scientific resources and services for a variety of viral respiratory pathogens, including both seasonal influenza viruses and those with pandemic potential to facilitate basic research and preclinical and clinical activities needed to translate scientific advances into safe and effective products.
The services available to the research community working to identify new therapeutic targets or developing antiviral agents and immunomodulatory compounds for influenza range from in vitro assessment to in vivo safety and efficacy testing in mouse and ferret models. Both animal models are available for evaluating preventative and therapeutic activity against seasonal and highly pathogenic influenza strains. Other preclinical services include therapeutic development services for lead compound identification, chemistry and manufacturing, toxicology, biokinetics, and assistance with generating a clinical development plans for a specific therapeutic candidates. Services available to support the further development of new and improved vaccine candidates include in vitro safety and immunogenicity evaluation, GLP toxicology, access to immunological assay core facilities, and regulatory consultation and support. Over the next year, funding is anticipated to be available to support limited GMP manufacturing capacity. Clinical trial services are also available for evaluation of safety and effectiveness of promising preventative and treatment strategies.
Additional NIAID supported resources available to the research community include access to bioinformatics, proteomics, and sequencing support. In 2004, NIAID initiated the Influenza Virus Genome Project to improve the availability of whole influenza virus genomes (avian and human strains) in the public domain. To date, more than 3,266 viruses have been fully sequenced through this resource and released to GenBank (see http://msc.jcvi.org/influenza/index.shtml for information on submitting viruses for sequencing or for downloading influenza virus A primer sets). In 2004, NIAID also launched The BioHealthBase (BHB) Bioinformatics Resource Center (www.biohealthbase.org) to serve as a freely available public database and analysis resource for the study of biodefense pathogens and those that directly affect human health including influenza viruses. BHB now serves as an integrated repository of diverse data sets and types submitted directly from researches as well as data imported from public databases, various analysis tools, and information curated from scientific literature. Data types that are currently available include influenza sequences, animal and human influenza surveillance, clinical trial results, and experimental epitope information. As part of the publicly accessible resources and services for influenza, BHB provides custom bioinformatics tools that are integrated with the database so that data can be efficiently analyzed in a single web-based resource. An extensive array of tools for
