News Article -- October 03, 2005

Large Tularemia Vaccine Contracts Among New NIAID Biodefense Awards

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, today announced that it has recently made several dozen awards to further strengthen the nation’s biodefense and emerging disease research capabilities. The new awards include grants totaling approximately $87 million for the construction of four biosafety level-3 (BSL-3) laboratories as well as two five-year contracts totaling approximately $60 million to support the development of a vaccine against tularemia, a potential agent of bioterror.

Tularemia Vaccine Contracts
Two contracts totaling approximately $60 million have been awarded to the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, (C. Rick Lyons, M.D., principal investigator) and to DynPort Vaccine Company LLC (DVC), Frederick, MD (Robert House, Ph.D., principal investigator) to support research to identify and evaluate new tularemia vaccine candidates. Tularemia, a bacterial disease, is also known as rabbit fever; symptoms include high fever, chills, aches and swollen lymph glands. Tularemia usually can be successfully treated with antibiotics. However, the bacterium that causes tularemia is regarded by experts as a potential agent of bioterror because, if aerosolized, it could cause widespread cases of more serious disease, including severe respiratory illness and systemic infections, and even death.


View the complete NIAID press release