UF’s Dr. Moyer plays leading roles in research partnership to strengthen defenses against lethal biologic agents

Developing better vaccines, diagnostic tests and therapies for defense against lethal diseases and agents relevant to bioterrorism is the goal of a new fast-track research initiative led by a partnership of southeastern universities, veterans medical centers and state health departments.

University of Florida scientists are playing leading roles in the massive project, which includes investigations of anthrax and smallpox, as well as the bacteria that cause such infectious diseases as tularemia, plague and hemorrhagic fevers. Developing safer vaccines and designing effective antiviral drugs against the lethal effects of smallpox infection are just two goals of the project, ultimately aimed at safeguarding public health in the face of mounting threats of bioterrorism.

UF molecular biologist Richard Moyer, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert on the family of poxviruses that includes variola—the cause of smallpox—serves on the project’s six-member steering committee and will direct three of seven critical areas of research. The efforts of all participating scientists are being coordinated through the new Southeastern Regional Center of Excellence for the Study of Emerging Biologic Threats.

The consortium is applying for grants from the National Institutes of Health, which has designated $10 million for the regional center.

“By enlisting scientists with track records of productive research in the areas of infectious diseases, coupled with the intellectual capital present in the southeastern United States, we’re optimistic this effort will be successful in obtaining major funding and supporting studies leading to measurable and clinically useful outcomes,” said Moyer, who is chairman of UF’s department of molecular genetics and microbiology.

“Those of us involved in organizing this cooperative regional effort—while we knew many world leaders in immunology and related areas of research were in the Southeast—were surprised to discover the depth of expertise in these areas,” Moyer said. “That’s in addition to the fact that the Southeast has as resources the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Yerkes Primate Center (both in Atlanta), and the Oak Ridge mouse consortium, which has one of the world’s richest collections of mice bred for research.”

Moyer is playing a leading role in four initiatives:

1. Managing a collaborative effort to develop a new generation of smallpox vaccines that will work effectively with fewer side effects than are linked to existing vaccines—a project to be carried out at the UF Health Science Center and at Duke and Emory universities;

2. Managing the large-scale preparation of proteins produced by genes within smallpox and related poxviruses. Participating crystallographers will then work to determine the three-dimensional structure of these proteins, which are required for virus replication.

Knowing the structure will aid the development of drugs designed to interfere with the action of these proteins. These studies will take place at UF and the University of Alabama;

3. Leading his own UF-based research aimed at identifying cell receptors to which smallpox and related viruses gain entry into the body. Identifying the virus receptors is considered key to the potential development of drugs or antibodies that would block attachment of the viruses to the cells, the first step in the infectious process. These studies will be done with collaborators at Vanderbilt and Emory universities;

4. Playing a key role in efforts to design drugs that will inhibit activity of smallpox virus and other lethal viruses and thereby reduce symptoms and aid recovery. Through this effort, led by infectious disease expert Richard Whitley, M.D., at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, researchers will try to define the genes required for viral replication and to develop ways to attack these genes.

Moyer’s leadership in the partnership follows close on the heels of his service on an NIH-appointed Blue Ribbon Panel, which developed an accelerated national agenda for counter-bioterrorism research. Moyer chaired the panel’s subgroup that drafted the national recommendations now in effect dealing with potential health threats associated with smallpox.