The purpose of this proposal submitted under the NIH IDEA Program is to promote sustainable improvements in research competitiveness and infrastructure at the LSU Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) by establishing the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE): Center for Molecular and Tumor Virology. Four senior virologists working in molecular, tumor, and immunological virology will serve as mentors to five junior level faculty members (one to be recruited in Year 2) to enhance their competitiveness for national funding and to increase the productivity of their developing research programs. A detailed plan to mentor these junior investigators with well-defined criteria to assess the development and competitiveness of their research programs is presented. The plan stresses close interaction of the mentors and junior faculty investigators and will create a Cell Culture and Molecular Analysis Core Facility that will complement the state-of-the-art services of the LSUHSC Research Core Facilities. In addition, an External Advisory Committee comprised of internationally recognized virologists, four being members of the National Academy of Sciences, will serve as reviewers of the Center for Molecular and Tumor Virology to provide oversight and peer review of the ongoing research projects and to offer suggestions that would contribute to the excellence of the Center. The Center is multidisciplinary as the projects of the junior faculty P.l.s interface with ongoing research in the Depts. of Medicine (viral diseases) and Physiology (altered endothelium) and our Cancer (tumor virology) and Arthritis (inflammation) Centers and address the mechanisms of different disease states resulting from viral infection. These diseases include herpesvirus induced severe inflammatory disease, cytomegalovirus induced alterations in endothelial cells leading to cardiovascular disease, molecular pathogenesis of yellow fever, and the role of polyamine metabolism in Epstein Barr virus lymphomagenesis. The Center has a thematic scientific focus in that molecular approaches applied to models of these disease states seek to elucidate the varied means by which viral gene products alter the cell and orchestrate events that result in disease. All four P.I.s are well trained in molecular virology at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels and will be provided the space, resources, and released time to develop state-of-the-art research programs competitive for national funding.
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