As Bioterrorist Threat Shows Need For Better Smallpox Vaccine, IU Scientists Study Tricks Pox Virus Uses To Hide From Immune System
INDIANAPOLIS - A team of Indiana University School of Medicine researchers has been awarded a grant of nearly $7 million for research that could help develop a more effective vaccine against the virus that causes smallpox.
With the five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health, the IUSM scientists intend to learn how the virus is able to evade the body's defense mechanisms against viruses and other intruders, said Cheong-Hee Chang, Ph.D., leader of the smallpox project.
"The potential use of smallpox as a bioterrorist agent has created a need to fully understand how this virus acts against the immune system in the development of the disease," said Dr. Chang, associate professor of microbiology and immunology.
All of the researchers involved in the project are affiliated with the Walther Oncology Center, a nationally-recognized research center at the IU School of Medicine.
The IU researchers will make use of vaccinia virus, a relative of the smallpox virus. Vaccinia is the virus used to create vaccines that protect people against smallpox infection.
The World Health Organization announced in 1980 that smallpox disease had been eradicated. Few Americans have been vaccinated against the disease since then and it's unclear how much protection remains for older Americans vaccinated years ago.
Concerns have risen in recent years that a terrorist organization might gain access to a stockpile of smallpox virus and develop it into a bioterrorist weapon. Smallpox is a highly contagious disease, with fatality rates greater than 30 percent among those with no vaccine protection.
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Media Contact: Eric Schoch
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