The goal of the program described here is to develop an antiviral drug for treating and preventing Lassa fever and other hemorrhagic fevers of arenavirus origin.

Schistosome parasites vary in biomedically important traits including virulence, host specificity, and resistance to drug treatment. We aim to develop efficient, economical methods for genetic mapping in S. mansoni that are applicable to a wide range of biomedically important traits.

The mission of the TxBiomed component is to generate the Marburg virus and propagate it, determine the virus' consensus sequence, experimentally determine the LD50 of guinea pig adapted Angolan Marburg virus, and evaluate the immunogenicity and efficacy of Marburg and Ebola Zaire VLPs monovalent vaccines when administered in two different adjuvants to guinea pigs and Non-Human Primates.

STDs and unwanted pregnancy create tremendous burdens on individuals, on U.S. society, and on the national health care costs. The work in this project will provide new approaches for preventing and treating STDs and preventing unwanted pregnancy. Specifically, we will test a new approach for treatment of HIV/AIDS infections. The approach will emphasize materials and approaches that can be translated into clinical products, which would provide new opportunities for enhancing health.

Malaria is major public health problem, causing over 1 million deaths per year worldwide. The discovery and development of new antimalarial drugs is becoming increasingly urgent as drug- resistant strains become increasingly prevalent. We propose to isolate the active antimalarial compound(s) present in the crude extracts in at least 14 previously uninvestigated plants that have promising antimalarial activity.

This research is designed to improve the quality of the research resource. Rhesus monkeys are crucial in the development of models for many human diseases. The goal of this project is to determine the factors that contribute to the development of severely abnormal Behavior in rhesus monkeys and to identify strategies for prevention and treatment.

The nature of the HIV virus has created several barriers to effective immune control by the humoral and cellular arms of adaptive immunity leading to chronic viral replication. Of the vaccine approaches tested in the SIV/macaque model, vaccination with live attenuated lentiviruses has consistently yielded the most effective and durable protection against pathogenic heterologous SIV strains. However, safety issues preclude the use of live attenuated lentiviruses in humans.

HIV and AIDS represent a critical threat to public health in the United States and internationally. This annual symposium contributes to expanding the knowledge base that will ultimately result in a vaccine to prevent transmission of HIV and treatments for those currently living with AIDS.

This study proposes to investigate the prospective association and determinants of Telomere attrition and Diabetes Risk in American Indians using an existing, well-defined, longitudinal cohort, the Strong Heart Family Study. Results will provide valuable data regarding biological Aging and Diabetes in American Indians and other ethnic groups as well.

Gene copy number variation (CNV) is ubiquitous in eukaryotic genomes and the resultant dosage changes can play an important role in determining phenotype. We aim to define the extent, evolutionary dynamics and functionality of CNV in the malaria parasite genome (Plasmodium falciparum). To achieve this we will use comparative genomic hybridization (cGH) which provides an efficient tool for assaying both CNV and single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and is particularly effective in haploid genomes.