PrintByline: Journal Record Staff Report The National Institutes of Health has awarded two grants worth $26.3 million to the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation for research into anthrax and to help train new scientists. Each grant will allow scientists to continue research and keep them working through 2014 on several interconnected projects. In the first project, a $14.5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, seven scientists will spend the next five years exploring the natural immune responses to Bacillus anthracis, the infectious agent thatcauses anthrax.
Inhalation anthrax is a dangerous disease with a mortality rate ofmore than 50 percent, said OMRF's Mark Coggeshall, the principal investigator on the project. We don't understand why the disease is so deadly. We want to learn everything about anthrax bacteria: how it gets from the lung to the blood, what happens when it's in the blood, and how to produce and stop the bacteria with the right antibodies. Thegrant covers three projects at OMRF. Coggeshall will study how components of the anthrax bacteria contribute to the sepsis-like features that infected people show. Judith James will investigate antibody response to the anthrax vaccine to learn what constitutes a good antibody, who makes good antibodies, and whether antibodies gathered from vaccinated soldiers can protect animals from being infected by anthrax. John Harley is scanning every gene in human DNA to see which geneor genes is present in those who make good antibodies after being vaccinated against anthrax. The grant will also fund collaborations with scientists at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Boston University and the University of Chicago to examine how anthrax spores move from the lung to the bloodstream, test vaccine formulations and isolate individual antibody molecules from vaccinated people. Historically, researchers have focused on the anthrax bacteria themselves, said OMRF President Stephen Prescott. OMRF scientists decided, instead, to study how the human immune system forms - or fails to form - immune responses to those bacteria. That nontraditional approach now is paying off, and this additional funding should bring about incredible advances in our approach to treating anthrax infection. Harley serves as principal investigator on the second project, an $11.8 million grant from the National Center for Research Resources. The five-year grant, which was awarded under the Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence program, is devoted to recruiting and training new scientists. The grant will help build infrastructure to enhance OMRF'sresearch capacity and competitiveness for National Institutes of Health grants. Mentoring scientists will work with up-and-coming researchers to study autoimmune diseases, illnesses such as lupus and multiple sclerosis in which the body turns the weapons of its immune systemagainst itself.
