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BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (March 10, 2006) – Southern Research Institute has been awarded more than $1.4 million in federal grant monies to develop new high-throughput screening tools to expedite the search for antiviral drugs that are effective against influenza, including the H5N1 avian flu strain.
“Southern Research is conducting vital work for our area, and I congratulate the company for securing this grant,” Congressman Spencer Bachus said today in a news release announcing the grant. Southern Research was awarded this grant by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"This is extremely good news, given the demand for effective therapeutics for flu, and serves as yet another way Southern Research is contributing to the search for new flu drugs," said James Noah, Ph.D., research biochemist and principal investigator on the project. "This award will accelerate the development of tools available to the scientific community to screen potentially millions of compounds effective against a broad spectrum of influenza type A and B strains, as well as the newly emergent H5N1 strains (bird flu).”
Noah added that Southern Research’s efforts will likely increase the arsenal of existing antiviral drugs available to rapidly combat an influenza epidemic or pandemic, and also identify new and effective tools through which scientists can discover new drugs. He said over the next year and a half, the combined skills of the biochemistry, virology, chemistry, and high-throughput screening groups at Southern Research, in collaboration with researchers from The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), Rutgers University, Rice University and The University of Texas at Austin, will be focused on this important work.
About Influenza
Influenza viruses cause acute respiratory distress commonly known as “flu”. Both A and B type viruses are contagious in humans, resulting in approximately 36,000 deaths annually in the United States. These annual epidemics also have a large economic impact, costing more than 1 billion dollars in direct costs, and 11 billion dollars in indirect costs, per year in the United States alone. Influenza A viruses, which infect a wide number of avian and mammalian species, account for all known major epidemics and pandemics that have caused high mortality rates.
With the emergence in 1997 of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus and its subsequent and rapid spread through Asia, and to Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, many investigators feel that a new influenza pandemic is imminent. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta has predicted a 3 to 7-fold increase in the hospitalization and mortality rate, and at least a 20-fold increase in economic impact in the United States alone, should a pandemic occur. The effect would be many times more devastating in regions of the world where the health care system is not comparably advanced.
About Southern Research
Southern Research is a not-for-profit organization that conducts scientific research at facilities in Alabama, Florida, Maryland and North Carolina. Southern Research provides contract research in the fields of preclinical drug discovery and development, advanced engineering, and environmental and energy-related research. Southern Research discovered six of the FDA-approved anti-cancer drugs on the market, and currently has four additional drugs in clinical trials. This year, the scientists and engineers of Southern Research celebrate the organization’s 65th Anniversary of legendary discoveries and leading innovation. For more information, see www.southernresearch.org.