NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will grant up to $10.9 million to the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, to seek biomarkers for infectious diseases, NIAID said Thursday.
UTMB will use the five-year contract to establish the Clinical Proteomics Center for Infectious Disease and Biodefense, one of two such centers funded by NIAID. As reported last week by GenomeWeb Daily News, Caprion Proteomics will receive as much as $12.9 million from NIAID to establish its center and fund research.
UTMB researchers will search for proteins that are created by pathogens, or made by the human body in response to infection. These proteins could be used as indicators of disease to develop diagnostics, therapies, or vaccines, Maureen Beanan, NIAID program officer in microbiology and infectious diseases, said in a statement.
The first two diseases the centers will study include dengue fever and brucellosis. Any candidate biomarkers will be made publicly available for free to the research community for further development.
These centers also will assess samples submitted from outside institutions for protein biomarkers, Beanan added.