DETECTING BIOLOGICAL THREATS TOP GOAL
OF UH PROJECT
Homeland Security Grant to Further Research Against Bioterrorism
HOUSTON, May 20, 2005 – Researchers at the University of
Houston have been awarded a homeland security grant to develop a
method for identifying bacteria and viruses that could be used in
bioterrorism.
The Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HSARPA)
recently awarded the grant to a group of bioinformatics researchers
at UH to study DNA probes for detecting emerging or engineered pathogens.
The project, titled “Tools for Ultraspecific Probe/Primer
Design,” started in April as part of the Bioinformatics and
Assays Development Program and is headed by Yuriy Fofanov, assistant
professor of computer science and of biology and biochemistry.
“We anticipate that our research results will bring us closer
to rapid detection and identification of microorganisms and viruses
that might be used in a terrorist attack,” Fofanov said.
As principal investigator, Fofanov, director of the UH Bioinformatics
Lab, is joined by co-investigators George Fox, a professor of biology
and biochemistry and adjunct professor of chemical engineering,
and Richard C. Willson, a professor of chemical engineering and
professor of biology and biochemistry. For Phase I of the project,
anticipated to last 10 months, HSARPA awarded nearly $300,000 to
UH, with approximately $500,000 to be awarded for Phase II, depending
upon results and how the agency’s program and budget evolves
over the next year.
At the core of this research is bioinformatics, the use of computer
science in biological research to analyze the composition of molecules,
especially in understanding genomic data. HSARPA chose to fund the
UH bioinformatics project based on preliminary results made possible
through financial assistance from the university’s Texas Learning
and Computation Center that gave $225,000 in funding for the UH
program’s initial research.
“The project uses the most advanced genomic computations to
develop biological threat agent detection reagents that do not react
to background clutter and cannot easily be evaded,” Willson
said. “These reagents should also have direct application
to clinical diagnostics.”
Along with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers, the new approach
will deliver DNA probes that bind to organisms of interest and carry
a highly detectable “label” to signal the presence of
the organism. The PCR primers can amplify a specific sequence of
DNA by as many as one billion times to reduce the amount of false
positives, as well as resist evasion by threat agent engineering.
The project focuses on choosing primers that detect, but don’t
mistakenly PCR-amplify, human or background-bacterial DNA. This
advanced technology is a reality because of the UH team’s
insight into the statistical properties of useful probes, primer
pairs and targets.
The ultimate goals of the research project are to improve future
detection systems, efficiently detect engineered threats and to
reduce the frequency of false positives. While false positives do
not occur often, the UH research team agrees that taking precautions
are necessary to avoid the chaos, mass anxiety and economic disruption
that come with this type of misinformation.
“You don’t want to have a test that says you might have
anthrax in a sample, such as the air in a building or train station,
when you don’t,” Fox said. “And since it’s
theoretically possible to use genetic engineering to disguise a
threat from traditional detection methods that are based on single
probes or primers, our approach realizes this and won’t be
fooled by it.”
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research
and teaching institution, is home to more than 40 research centers
and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate,
civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university
in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and
service with more than 35,000 students.
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