"Influenza infection is a significant cause of death in the US, and as of October 2007 more than 60 percent of the individuals who had contracted the H5N1 virus died," said Alan Aderem, PhD, ISB co-founder and director, who will be the principal investigator under the contract. "It's critical that we understand how our innate immune system responds to, or is modified by, these viruses so that we can identify targets for the development of effective vaccines and
treatments."
In the US, influenza annually causes approximately 40,000 deaths and costs the economy an estimated $80 billion. The 1918 pandemic, estimated to have killed more than 50 million people, was an avian-like virus that became communicable among humans.
Researchers have identified individual factors, such as specific combinations of genes, that can make the difference between a virus that is merely annoying and one that is potentially deadly. How these
"We are going to examine the interaction of these viruses with the host at the molecular level to determine how, when and where their components interact with and influence the initial immune response, such that the infection is lethal," said Alan Diercks, PhD, senior research scientist at ISB. "This project represents one of the first efforts to apply a comprehensive suite of high-throughput technologies to the study of influenza infection."
St. Jude Children's Hospital, the University of California, San Diego, Vanderbilt University and Seattle Children's Hospital Research Institute will collaborate with ISB in the study.
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