HHS announces new regional centers for biodefens...( Health and Human Services Secretary Tom...),Health

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson today announced grants totaling approximately $350 million spread over five years to establish eight Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (RCE). This nationwide group of multidisciplinary centers is a key element in HHS' strategic plan for biodefense research.

"We have moved with unprecedented speed and determination to prepare for a bioterror attack or any other public health crisis since the terrorist attacks of 2001," Secretary Thompson said. "These new grants add to this effort and will not only better prepare us for a bioterrorism attack, but will also enhance our ability to deal with any public health crisis, such as SARS and West Nile virus."

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of HHS' National Institutes of Health, is providing the grants and will administer the RCE program.

"Since the terrorist attacks on American soil in 2001, NIAID has moved rapidly to bolster basic biomedical research and the development of countermeasures to defend the United States against deliberately released agents of bioterrorism as well as naturally occurring infectious diseases," said Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID director. "The new RCE program provides a coordinated and comprehensive mechanism to support the interdisciplinary research that will lead to new and improved therapies, vaccines, diagnostics and other tools to protect the citizens of our country and the world against the threat of bioterrorism and other emerging and re-emerging diseases."

The RCE program's primary role is to foster the physical and intellectual environments in which wide-ranging research on infectious diseases can proceed productively and safely. All RCEs will:

• Support investigator-directed research
  
• Train researchers and other personnel for biodefense research activities
  
• Create and maintain
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Contact: NIAID Press Office
niaidnews@niaid.nih.gov
301-402-1663
NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
4-Sep-2003


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