TGen, Arizona Dept. of Health Services nab Valley Fever grant
Summary:
When an Arizonan comes down with Valley Fever, doctors and public-health experts should be able to diagnosis the respiratory infection within hours, identify where the individual crossed paths with the disease-causing fungus, and take action to limit public exposure. Those are some of the long-term goals for a new line of research that the Translational Genomics Research Institute and the Arizona Department of Health Services are launching with the support of a $300,000 grant from the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission.
Full Story:
When an Arizonan comes down with Valley Fever, doctors and public-health experts should be able to diagnosis the respiratory infection within hours, identify where the individual crossed paths with the disease-causing fungus, and take action to limit public exposure.
Those are some of the long-term goals for a new line of research that the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) are launching with the support of a $300,000 grant from the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission (ABRC).
Valley Fever is endemic to the desert Southwest, and that isolation means that it receives little national attention, said Paul Keim, director of TGen North in Flagstaff, where scientists will study the genome of the fungus and begin developing new tools to fight it. Within Arizona, though, cases of Valley Fever are proliferating, and the disease is emerging as a major public-health threat. In 2006, the state saw 5,536 cases, up 57 percent from 2005.
"Valley Fever may be the most important infectious disease in Arizona, in terms of sheer numbers of infections," said David Engelthaler, the Director of Programs for TGen North, and the former State Epidemiologist for Arizona. "This grant will allow for our researchers to explore the Valley Fever genome in a way that has never been done before."
ABRC grants are intended to support translational research, which involves the development of clinical applications for laboratory discoveries. In this case, TGen scientists will look for clues in the genetic code of the fungus, also known as Coccidioides, that could signal where its origin, how it is transmitted, and a way to match individual cases to sites of infection. With new diagnostic and analytic tools at their disposal, public-health officials might then be able to isolate spread of the disease.
"This is an important step in combating Arizona's epidemic," said Susan Gerard, director of ADHS. "Today's announcement shows Arizona is serious about addressing this health problem. Much more work is ahead of us, but this is a great start."
Arizona is already home to significant research on Valley Fever. At the Valley Fever Center for Excellence at the University of Arizona in Tucson, studies are underway on drugs and vaccines to combat the disease.
For more information:
"Grant targets valley fever as number of cases rise," Business Journal of Phoenix, 11/26/2007
"Arizona Researchers to Study Valley Fever Fungus," KJZZ report, 12/1/2007