Penn has become part of the National Institutes of Health's recently launched $350 million national plan for increased biodefense research.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson announced the creation of eight federally funded Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research on Thursday.
The Medical School is one of several institutions -- including Johns Hopkins University and nearby Drexel University -- to be incorporated in the Middle Atlantic RCE, which will be led by the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Penn alone is slated to receive an estimated $6.1 million for biodefense research over the next five years.
"The hope is that these different programs that [focus on] biodefense research will ultimately all get coordinated together," Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases Stuart Isaacs said.
Isaacs is leading a project in smallpox vaccine research as part of Penn's involvement with the RCE that includes three groups of researchers at Penn, as well as one at the University of Virginia.
He stressed that collaboration is central to the new biodefense centers, and noted that the overall hope of the NIH in this endeavor is to create a regionally connected group of researchers.
Isaacs added that though the NIH has previously funded collaborative cancer research efforts in the "war on cancer," this is the first time such a thing has been tried in the field of infectious disease.
According to Roselyn Eisenberg, a professor at the Veterinary School who will be involved in the research, this regional collaboration is revolutionary not only in its scope, but also in its nature.
Usually, scientists collaborate with other scientists who are "interested in what we're interested in," Eisenberg said, listing Harvard, Northwestern and Colorado universities as examples of schools Penn has previously collaborated with. However, these cooperative efforts came about because of intellectual relationships rather than geographical proximity, she said.
Eisenberg said that at first, she wasn't sure the idea of the centers was going to work.
"I was kind of doubtful," she said. A year ago, when Penn scientists first began writing the 130-page grant proposal for participation in the project, she thought the idea was "very unwieldly" because there were "lots of people involved."
But now that the plan is being put into practice, Eisenberg is less concerned.
"If you're trying to come up with a new model [for collaboration], this is as good as any... I think it can work," Eisenberg said.
"The goal is to take these products from lab bench to the marketplace in as short a time as possible," she added.
But the emphasis on cross-institutional collaboration may overlap with some already existing on-campus cooperation.
Penn has its own Institute for Strategic Threat Analysis and Response -- an organization created in the wake of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, that consists of professors, physicians and other faculty members who conduct research related to biological and other terroristic threats.
Like ISTAR, the government's willingness to contribute to biodefense research is also due to the impact of Sept. 11 and the subsequent anthrax scare, Eisenberg said.
Despite the similarities in focus -- ISTAR is also funding vaccine modeling research -- there is no direct connection between ISTAR and the RCE, according to Isaacs.
However, "there's certainly informal cross-talk," Isaacs added, if only by virtue of the fact that ISTAR Director Harvey Rubin "has an office a couple of doors down from me."
While the $6.1 million that Penn will receive is a relatively small amount in comparison to the Medical School's total research funding, it is an unusually large grant to be specified for biodefense, Isaacs said.
Regardless of how much difference the funding will make, those involved say the RCE itself has already made an impact.
According to Isaacs, even in the process of creating the RCE, "there's been close relationships built. There's been interest in other people's work set up."
