OSU Veterinary Center receives funding for bioterrorism and disease research

Friday, July 23, 2010

The Department of Veterinary Pathobiology at the Oklahoma State University (OSU) Center for Veterinary Health Sciences was recently awarded a five-year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases/Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases.  The grant is part of the NIAID’s response to potential threats of bioterrorism and emerging infectious diseases.

The award, entitled “Broad-spectrum Antifolates for Treatment of Drug Resistant Bacillus anthracis,” is a RO1 multidisciplinary partnership grant that will involve the center’s Department of Veterinary Pathobiology and the OSU Department of Chemistry along with collaborators at Sapient Discovery in San Diego, Calif., and Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute (LBERI) in Albuquerque, N.M.

The Principal Investigator is William Barrow, Ph.D., Sitlington Chair in Infectious Diseases, professor, Veterinary Pathobiology, at the OSU veterinary center.  Co-Investigators are Christina Bourne, Ph.D. and Phil Bourne, Ph.D., both with the center’s Department of Veterinary Pathobiology; Darrell Berlin, Ph.D. and Richard Bunce, Ph.D., both with OSU Chemistry; Kal Ramnarayan, Ph.D. with Sapient; and Michelle Valderas, Ph.D., with LBERI.

“Our goal is to develop a new assemblage of antimicrobials for the treatment of inhalation anthrax that will inhibit a critical metabolic enzyme—dihydrofolate reductase,” explains Barrow.  “The iterative process will involve a combination of traditional drug design methods, including crystallography, molecular biology and medicinal chemistry, as well as in silico discovery tools and animal models.”

In other words, for the next five years using the $4 million grant, Barrow’s team will be trying to improve available drug therapy in the event of a bioterrorist attack on civilian and/or military populations.  Anthrax is one of the threats to citizens and military units serving in the Middle East.