The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced today that Mount Sinai School of Medicine is a new Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance. NIAID is awarding $23 million per year for seven years to establish six Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance around the country. Mount Sinai will help expand NIAIDs influenza research as the only recognized Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance in New York City.

Mount Sinai welcomes this high honor bestowed by NIAID for our influenza virus research and recognition of our teams hard work, said Adolfo Garca-Sastre, Ph.D., principal investigator for research at Mount Sinais Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance, Professor of Microbiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. We look forward to building upon our past research on the influenza virus, helping the federal government research findings in order to control and weaken the impact of influenza and stop the danger of a deadly influenza pandemic.

The Mount Sinai Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance has been named Center for Research in Influenza Pathogenesis or CRIP. Mount Sinai researchers Adolfo Garca-Sastre and Peter Palese, in collaboration with Daniel Perez, at University of Maryland, and Ron Fouchier, at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, will continue to conduct molecular studies to identify influenza virus genes associated with the development of disease, the adaptability of flu viruses in birds and mammals, and the transmission of flu viruses between different hosts.

Mount Sinai is globally renowned for its research on the 1918 flu virus. The goal of Mount Sinais research is to gain greater understanding of the virus in order to use this knowledge to predict future pandemics and develop novel vaccines and treatments. In 2005, researchers re
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The Mount Sinai Hospital / Mount Sinai School of Medicine
2-Apr-2007