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New Scripps Research Mass Spectrometry NanoTechnology Delivers Significant Advances

Multi-Year Project Is Aimed at Uncovering Novel Treatments for Infectious Diseases

LA JOLLA, CA, October 26, 2007—The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded a $51 million five-year contract to The Scripps Research Institute to study innate and adaptive immune responses to a number of pathogens, including the influenza virus.

Richard Ulevitch, Scripps Research professor and chairman of the Department of Immunology, will lead the project as principal investigator.

The project's long-term goal is to develop innovative approaches to improving vaccines and immunotherapeutics that can be used against a wide range of diseases, particularly emerging or reemerging infectious diseases.

"This represents a significant investment in an absolutely critical area of research," Ulevitch said. "Understanding immunity at this level is the key to treating human inflammatory and infectious diseases."

Consortium members sharing in the multi-year contract are the Institute for Systems Biology (Seattle, WA), the Australian National University (Canberra, AU), and Stanford University (Palo Alto, CA).

The new contract builds on a previous five-year program to develop a comprehensive and detailed picture of innate immunity, the body’s first line of defense against infectious diseases. That program was awarded a $24 million grant by NIAID in 2003.

"The complexity of the underlying biology requires an experienced scientific team with an advanced understanding of innate and adaptive immunity to infection," Ulevitch said. "We have that team in place. More importantly, we have a well-established record of close collaboration, and a history of important scientific discoveries."

Toward an Overarching Understanding

Using microbial pathogens, the consortium will develop a detailed model of innate and adaptive immune responses to infection in animal models, and confirm that similar pathways function in primary human immune cells.

With the new contract, Ulevitch noted, the scope of the project has expanded significantly and the group has increased resources by adding a second Forward Genetics group, which will screen mice mutants for defects in innate and adaptive immune responses, and a Signaling Core, which will elucidate gene regulatory and signaling networks that control the immune response to pathogens.

The new research will apply a systems biology approach to identify the complex cast of characters that make up the innate and adaptive immune system. Systems biology is a relatively new field that blends genomics and proteomics with mathematics and computer modeling to gain an overarching understanding of the entire biological system.

In contrast to traditional hypothesis-driven research, in which a single gene or protein is selected for study, the consortium scientists will first gather information about multiple genes, proteins, and biochemical reactions without regard for function-and then examine this data from multiple perspectives to understand how the full system functions. Using a range of analytic tools, including mass spectrometry and transcriptome profiling, they will determine the biological role of these regulators.

The systems biology-driven program of gene discovery and network analysis will be implemented by groups at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle and at Stanford University.

"The resources of the Institute for Systems Biology are absolutely critical in implementing this complex approach," Ulevitch said. "Through its resources, and those of Stanford University and Australian National University, we have the large-scale analytical tools and computational approaches to facilitate gene discovery."

The studies will also include state-of-the art analysis that determines the relevance of these genes to human immune responses. "We understand that translating the findings from mouse models to human cells is a complex challenge, one without a single solution," Ulevitch said. "As a result, we're taking a multi-track approach to the problem that we believe will allow us to demonstrate the potential usefulness of these newly discovered immune mechanisms to treating infectious diseases in humans."

As the research progresses, the consortium will provide a Web-based data portal to enable the scientific community at large to access the findings without specialized training in informatics or computational analysis.

In addition to Ulevitch, the consortium includes: Alan Aderem, co-founder and director of the Institute for Systems Biology; Bruce Beutler, chair of the Department of Genetics at Scripps Research; Christopher Goodnow, director of the Australian Phenomics and Immunogenomics Laboratories at the Australian National University; Garry Nolan, director of the Stanford National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Proteomics Center; Ilya Shmulevich, director of Computational Biology the Institute for Systems Biology, and Luc Teyton, professor in the Department of Immunology at Scripps Research.

About The Scripps Research Institute

The Scripps Research Institute is one of the world's largest independent, non-profit biomedical research organizations, at the forefront of basic biomedical science that seeks to comprehend the most fundamental processes of life. Scripps Research is internationally recognized for its discoveries in immunology, molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, neurosciences, autoimmune, cardiovascular, and infectious diseases, and synthetic vaccine development. Established in its current configuration in 1961, it employs approximately 3,000 scientists, postdoctoral fellows, scientific and other technicians, doctoral degree graduate students, and administrative and technical support personnel. Scripps Research is headquartered in La Jolla, California. It also includes Scripps Florida, whose researchers focus on basic biomedical science, drug discovery, and technology development. Currently operating from temporary facilities in Jupiter, Scripps Florida will move to its permanent campus in 2009.

About NIAID

NIAID is a component of the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. NIAID supports basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious and immune-mediated illnesses, including HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, illness from potential agents of bioterrorism, tuberculosis, malaria, autoimmune disorders, asthma, and allergies. For more information, see: http://www.niaid.nih.gov.

About the Institute for Systems Biology

The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) is an internationally renowned non-profit research institute dedicated to the study and application of systems biology. ISB's goal is to unravel the mysteries of human biology and identify strategies for predicting and preventing diseases such as cancer, arthritis and AIDS. For more information, see: http://www.systemsbiology.org.

About Stanford University

Stanford University is one of the world's leading research and teaching institutions. Located in Palo Alto, California, its current community of scholars includes 16 Nobel laureates, four Pulitzer Prize winners and 24 MacArthur Fellows. Stanford is particularly noted for its openness to interdisciplinary research, not only within its schools and departments, but also in its laboratories, institutes and research centers. For more information, see: http://www.stanford.edu/.

About Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is one of the world's foremost research universities. Distinguished by its relentless pursuit of excellence, ANU attracts leading academics and outstanding students from Australia and around the world. For more information, see: http://www.anu.edu.au/.

For more information contact:
Keith McKeown
10550 North Torrey Pines Road
La Jolla, California 92037

Tel: 858.784.8134
Fax: 858.784.8118
kmckeown@scripps.edu