NIAID funds tularemia research at New York school

Dec 9, 2003 (CIDRAP News) – Albany Medical College in Albany, N.Y., has received an $8.3 million federal grant to study pulmonary tularemia, with the main emphasis on developing a vaccine, college officials announced last week.

The grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will fund tularemia research at the college for 4½ years, the college said in a news release.

"The pulmonary form of tularemia (pneumonic tularemia) is the deadliest form of the disease and the form most likely to be used by bioterrorists, yet the great majority of research against this organism has focused on systemic infection rather than pulmonary tularemia," said Dennis Metzger, PhD, director of the college's Center for Immunology and Microbial Disease.

The tularemia agent, Francisella tularensis, is one of the six "class A" bioterrorism agents. Both the United States and the Soviet Union developed F tularensis as a weapon in the 1950s and 1960s, and the Soviets reportedly developed strains resistant to antibiotics and vaccines. Metzger said the infectious dose of F tularensis may be as low as 10 organisms.

Albany researchers will test potential tularemia vaccines in mice, according to the news release. They will also study the mechanisms of lung inflammation in tularemia and ways to control it. One researcher, Timothy Sellati, PhD, will study the make-up of F tularensis. "Right now, we don't know how this bacterium acts to make people sick," he said. "It's a large hole in our understanding of the disease, and an important one in figuring out how to protect ourselves from a biological attack."

The college is currently building a biosafety level 3 laboratory for the tularemia research. The lab is being funded by a $2 million state grant, officials said.