Carbondale Reporter

University of Illinois scientists win $9.5 million to study emerging pathogens

Aquatic birds, especially ducks, can carry influenza viruses but they don’t often become severely ill, leading scientists to wonder how their immune systems act as a reservoir for a highly infectious and pathogenic virus, but the birds remain relatively unharmed. Additionally, could the immune system be engineered to thwart transmission to other animals and humans, ultimately preventing future pandemics?

Four faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, plus a collaborator in Colorado, will attempt to answer these questions as part of an ambitious, three-year project funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. HHMI will provide $9.5 million over three years to the UIUC and Colorado project, which was one of 13 selected by the institute as part of its $100 million Emerging Pathogens Initiative.

“We are optimistic that this initiative will help these scientists develop new, untested approaches that can reveal how pathogens work and how the human immune system responds to pathogen infection,” said HHMI Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer Leslie Vosshall in a release announcing projects funded by the Emerging Pathogens Initiative. “With this program, we hope to gain some of the knowledge and tools we need to get a scientific head start on future epidemics.”

Avian influenza outbreaks have been reported around the world for more than a century. The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, first identified in 1996, can cause severe disease and has a high mortality rate in humans. If the H5N1 virus were to mutate and become easily transmissible from person-to-person while maintaining its ability to cause severe disease, the consequences for public health could be very serious, according to the World Health Organization.

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