NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced that it will begin accepting contract proposals for research into the three-dimensional atomic structures of proteins and other molecules that play key biological roles in human pathogens or in host-pathogen interactions.
The contracts are designed to support the agency's Structural Genomics Centers for Infectious Diseases (SGCID) program, which focuses on determining the 3D structure of protein targets of biomedical interest. The data are made available to the scientific community, along with the expression clones and peptide materials for the targets.
Since 2007, the NIAID has established several five-year SGCID contracts with two consortiums — the Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Diseases and the Seattle Structural Genomics Center for Infectious Disease — resulting in more than 1,559 3D structures of protein targets from bacterial, viral, and eukaryotic pathogens.
To build on this work, the NIAID said that it is seeking additional proposals for studies that aim to generate 3D structures of targets derived from bacterial, viral, eukaryotic, and other human pathogens using high-throughput technologies and methodologies; studies to characterize the molecular function and biochemical properties of selected targets; and studies around the structure-guided design and functional evaluation of drug targets and vaccine candidates.
The agency said it is also interested in contracts for providing 3D structural determination services to the broader scientific community and the dissemination of resources generated under the contracts including all 3D structural information and reagents.
Contracts will be awarded with a one-year term and are expected to include four options for one-year extensions. Additional details can be found here.