The Vermont Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases (VCIID) COBRE is about to enter its 10th year. During this period, VCIID has grown from 9 founding faculty to 25 and produced 416 publications and $92 million in grant support and 14 patents. Twelve junior faculty were supported with COBRE funding during Phases I and II (10 tenure track and 5 have already achieved tenure) and they published 118 papers and garnered $13.2 million in funding (including 4 new R01 grants) while still junior faculty. Junior faculty also received several awards, including a Pew Scholars Award. Institutional support from the University of Vermont (UVM) during this period was also a robust $2.9 million. The VCIID has demonstrated its development into a mature collaborative center by a variety of metrics. Its faculty has received a P01 Program Project Grant and a T32 Training Grant, both of which were renewed. One of the former junior faculties has established the Vaccine Testing Center (VTC) as a clinical trials wing of the VCIID. It is currently conducting trials for a new dengue virus vaccine with NIAID funding, and examining why undernourished children in Bangladesh do not respond to polio virus with funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. To date VTC has received $18.5 million in funding. To fulfill a growing need for a BSL3 facility for VCIID faculty, we were economically innovative by leveraging a COBRE ARRA supplement to support a collaborative venture with the Vermont Department of Health in which UVM donated land on the UVM campus to build a new Department of Health laboratory containing a large joint BSL3/ABSL3 facility paid and maintained by the Department of Health. This will also foster interactions between VCIID investigators and Department of Health staff, and hence move us into the realm of public health. As we approach Phase III we will motivate VCIID faculty through a Pilot project Program to collaborate on common research themes to prepare for new collaborative R01, P01 and U-19 applications, as well as to move their research in a translational and entrepreneurial direction with our new SPARK-VT Program. Our cores in Genome Technologies/Bioinformatics and Mass Spectrometry/Proteomics have both upgraded instrumentation during Phase II and diversified their user base. Combined with institutional commitments for five years beyond the end of Phase III, we feel we have achieved the metrics to begin a successful Phase III COBRE period.
We are continually reminded of the presence of emerging as well as re-emerging infectious diseases. The past few years have witnessed outbreaks around the world of polio, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, virulent avian influenza, and Ebola. Closer to home, the U.S. has experienced new cases of dengue, chinkungunya, and measles viruses. In response to this, the Vermont Center for Immunology and Infectious Diseases (VCIID) COBRE focuses on the full spectrum of viral, bacterial, and parasitic infections, as well as the host immune response to these pathogens. During our nearly ten years of its existence, VCIID investigators have expanded their basic research into the clinical area with the Vaccine Testing Center and moved their discoveries into diagnostics and therapeutics.
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