UGA receives $1.25 million for training of tropical, emerging global diseases researchers
Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases was awarded $1.25 million by the National Institutes of Health to continue training graduate and postdoctoral students over the next five years who can help address the growing threats of parasitic diseases.
Every year, diseases caused by protozoan and helminth parasites are responsible for more than a million deaths and cause hundreds of millions more cases of severe or subtle morbidity due to chronic infections lasting years.
“The University of Georgia is uniquely positioned as a training ground for the next generation of parasitology and tropical diseases researchers,” said Silvia Moreno, a professor of cellular biology in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and co-director of the center’s T32 trainee program.
The internationally recognized research center brings together the largest number of laboratories in the U.S. that collectively conduct research on the full gamut of parasite diseases. These diseases are highly prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Asia. Often they are the consequence and cause of poverty. They also are increasingly emerging or re-emerging in the U.S. and other industrialized nations.
The CTEGD training program is currently in its 10th year. Past trainees have gone on to successful careers as staff scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and as faculty, postdoctoral scholars or medical and veterinary scientists at leading universities and research institutes.
“The breadth and culture of our program instills trainees with the ability to not only translate basic scientific findings into tool development and the implementation of interventions, but also to identify and formulate fundamental research questions beyond the context of parasitic disease itself,” Moreno said.
“This program is very attractive to students,” said Boris Striepen, Distinguished Research Professor of Cellular Biology in the Franklin College and co-director of the training grant. “We have had many more strong candidates than training slots.”
To address this issue, the new NIH award will double the number of postdoctoral trainees from one to two each year, and matching funding from UGA’s Office of the Vice President for Research will support two predoctoral trainees in addition to the three graduate students supported by the training grant each year.
“This institutional matching support is tremendously important when competing for NIH training grants,” said Dan Colley, CTEGD director, who was the T32 training grant program director for its first 10 years.
Trainees in the program build upon their background in biomedical sciences through specialized courses and research mentored by one or more CTEGD faculty. The program is unique in that students can also broaden their perspective on the global aspects of parasitic diseases through a capstone experience, which typically takes students away from the UGA campus for four to eight weeks. Many of the previous trainees have conducted field studies in a disease-endemic country.
“My capstone experience in Kenya provided an exceptional opportunity to gain experience both working in the field and in a laboratory in a developing setting,” said Briana Flaherty, a doctoral student in the CTEGD and the department of infectious diseases. “This short time has had a profound impact on my future interests and career goals.”
The many international collaborations of the center’s faculty provide a wide variety of opportunities to the trainees. Over the last nine years, graduate students have worked in Haiti, Tanzania, Argentina, Thailand and Kenya. The Office of the Vice President for Research also has committed funds over the next five years to assist in the provision of these experiences on the T32 training grant.
“We in CTEGD are extremely pleased that NIH has seen fit to fund this T32 training grant for an additional five years,” Colley said. “It is an investment in our new program directors, Drs. Striepen and Moreno, and in CTEGD’s commitment to high-quality training of the next generation in this important area of parasitic disease-related research.”
The grant funding is provided under NIH award number 3T32AI060546.
UGA Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases
The University of Georgia Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases draws on a strong foundation of parasitology, immunology, cellular and molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics to develop medical and public health interventions. Established in 1998, the center promotes international biomedical research and educational programs at UGA and throughout Georgia to address the parasitic and other tropical diseases that continue to threaten the health of people throughout the world. For more information, see http://ctegd.uga.edu/.
Writer: Donna Huber
Contact:Boris Striepen
SCORE: Moving towards schistosomiasis elimination
As a consortium tasked with operational research, SCORE is finding out what current and future NTD program managers need to do to make mass drug administration (MDA) for schistosomiasis a better intervention in terms of alternative approaches. SCORE is also working to evaluate and develop tools needed by national program managers for mapping and diagnostics.
UGA researchers develop breakthrough tools in fight against cryptosporidium
Athens, Ga. – Researchers at the University of Georgia have developed new tools to study and genetically manipulate cryptosporidium, a microscopic parasite that causes the diarrheal disease cryptosporidiosis. Their discoveries, published in the journal Nature, will ultimately help researchers in academia and industry find new treatments and vaccines for cryptosporidium, which is a major cause of disease and death in children under 2 years old.
Crypto, as researchers often call it, is most commonly spread through tainted drinking or recreational water. When a person drinks contaminated water, parasites emerge from spores and invade the lining of the small intestine, causing severe diarrhea. In 1993, more than 400,000 people living in the Milwaukee area were infected with crypto when one of the city’s water treatment systems malfunctioned.
The parasite is especially problematic in areas with limited resources, and recent global studies have shown crypto to be one of the most important causes of life-threatening diarrhea in infants and toddlers. There is currently no vaccine and only one drug—nitazoxanide—approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for cryptosporidiosis, but it provides no benefit for those in gravest danger: malnourished children and immunocompromised patients.
“One of the biggest obstacles with crypto is that it is very difficult to study in the lab, and that has made scientists and funders shy away from studying the parasite,” said Boris Striepen, co-author of the paper and Distinguished Research Professor of Cellular Biology in UGA’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “We think that the techniques reported in this paper will open the doors for discovery in crypto research, and that will, in turn, lead to new and urgently needed therapeutics.”
One of their techniques involves manipulating crypto so that it emits light, making it much easier to detect and follow the parasite. Previously, researchers would have to examine samples under a microscope and count crypto spores one by one, which is both time-consuming and inaccurate.
Now, by simply measuring light, researchers may test thousands of drug candidates simultaneously to see if they have the ability to inhibit crypto growth.
“There are enormous libraries of chemicals available now, and some of these chemicals may work as a treatment for crypto, and this technology will help us find them much more rapidly,” said Striepen, who is also a member of UGA’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases.
The team also developed a way to genetically modify the parasite using a technique called CRISPR/Cas9, which allows scientists to make very precise changes to an organism’s genome and observe the effects. By knocking out specific crypto genes, researchers can test their importance for the parasite and make predictions on their potential value as a drug target.
Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that children develop immunity to crypto as they get older, but the mechanisms that provide that immunity are poorly understood. The genetic techniques developed in Striepen’s lab will help identify the foundation of natural immunity, opening the possibility for vaccine development. They may also help to develop weakened parasite strains that can no longer cause disease but still induce lasting immunity.
“Drug treatments are important, but finding a way to prevent the disease in the first place would be the most effective way to deal with an early childhood disease,” said Sumiti Vinayak, lead author of the paper and assistant research scientist in Striepen’s lab.
The team also developed new methods to study the disease in mice. Mouse tests are an important precursor to human drug and vaccine trials, and the ability to study crypto in a living organism will speed discovery and therapeutic development.
“Now that we have overcome these initial hurdles, we have a great opportunity to move forward much faster,” Striepen said. “There is need, there is opportunity and now there is technical ability, so I think we may have reached a turning point in the fight against this important disease.”
Additional authors of the study were Mattie Pawlowic, Adam Sateriale, Carrie Brooks, Caleb Studstill, Yael Bar-Peled and Michael Cipriano, all from UGA. This study was supported financially by the National Institutes of Health under grant numbers R01AI112427 and T32AI060546, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the UGA Research Foundation and the Georgia Research Alliance.
The study on “Genetic modification of the diarrhoeal pathogen Cryptosporidium parvum” is available online at www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14651.html.
Writer: James Hataway
Contact:Boris Striepen
