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Carole A. Heilman, Ph.D., Director, DMID
Dr. Carole Heilman, Director of the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID), welcomed the Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Subcommittee of the National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council and provided a brief report of Division activities. Dr. Heilman began by summarizing recent personnel changes in DMID: 1) Kate O'Brien has joined the Respiratory Diseases Branch on a part-time basis to assist with influenza vaccine activities; 2) Barbara Savarese joined DMID and will oversee the STD Clinical Trials Unit; 3) Sarah Landry will head up public relations and communications activities for DMID; 3) Maureen Powers has joined the Parasitology and International Programs Branch as a clinical trials specialist; 4) Wendy Faranoff, a new IND Coordinator in the Clinical and Regulatory Affairs Branch; 5) Pamela McInnes, who is serving as the Acting Deputy Director of DMID, 6) Ann Ginsberg, who has assumed the position of Acting Branch Chief of the Respiratory Diseases Branch in Dr. McInnes' absence; 7) George Curlin, who recently retired as the Division's Acting Deputy Director but will stay with DMID in a consultative capacity on vaccine trials; 8) Regina Rabinovich, who recently left DMID to head up the Bill and Melinda Gates malaria vaccine initiative; 9) Beth Horigan, who has assumed the role of Acting Branch Chief for the Clinical and Regulatory Affairs Branch; and finally 10) George Counts recently left DMID to head up the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Syphilis Elimination Program.
Dr. Heilman then shared with the Subcommittee her recent presentation to the Institute's Executive Committee outlining proposed DMID activities for Fiscal Year 2002, which span three areas: 1) maintaining infrastructure, 2) implementing high priority plans, and 3) new areas of emphasis, in an effort to highlight for the Subcommittee future DMID research priorities.
Following Dr. Heilman's opening remarks, Dr. Dennis Lang, DMID's Enteric Diseases Program Officer, led a discussion focusing on the question of whether NIAID should support the development of a Helicobacter pylori human challenge model, which was originally addressed at a NIAID supported workshop last fall. Dr. Lang was joined by four invited scientists, including Drs. Julie Parsonnet and Harry Greenberg from Stanford University, Dr. Carolyn Deal from the Food and Drug Administration, and Dr. Frank Miller from NIH's Department of Clinical Bioethics. Dr. Lang described the usefulness of human challenge models for several other enteric diseases, noting the role they play in furthering our understanding of the pathogenesis of disease and as a preliminary measurement of vaccine efficacy. Although the value of such a model was clearly noted, discussion of the H. pylori model focused on the possibility that volunteers would not be successfully eradicated of their experimental infection and that long term sequelae including ulcer disease or gastric cancer could result in such individuals. It was felt that this possibility differentiated this challenge model from other models currently in practice. The Subcommittee noted that current vaccine strategies for H. pylori could benefit from more in depth studies on animal models and recommended that NIAID pursue animal models more rigorously and postpone the development of a human challenge model at this time.
Dr. Michael Gerber summarized the outcome of two recent meetings that focused on the Rotavirus vaccine and intussusception. NIAID, CDC, FDA and NVPO jointly sponsored the first workshop on January 21 to discuss the relationship between intussusception, various infectious diseases and vaccines. The focus was to discuss approaches to developing and studying the possible mechanisms behind this relationship as well as approaches to identifying children at increased risk for developing intussusception. Dr. Gerber also reported on a February 9-11 WHO-supported meeting held in Geneva that focused on future directions for rotavirus vaccine research in developing countries.
Dr. John McGowan, Director of NIAID's Division of Extramural Activities, presented a pilot study proposal to the Subcommittee that would utilize the Internet for several pre-Council actions, thereby allowing NIAID to move to a one-day Council format. The Subcommittee agreed to participate in a pilot study of the new Council process at the next meeting of the NIAID Advisory Council (June 2000).
Following Dr. McGowan's presentation, Dr. Leslye Johnson, Branch Chief of DMID's Enteric and Hepatic Diseases program, presented a concept to the Subcommittee for their consideration:
Hepatitis C - Recovery Research Network This initiative is a five year contract that will provide investigators with hard to obtain specimens, explore multiple research avenues, develop and/or link cohorts and open new areas of investigation that will lead to future prevention and intervention studies.
Because infection with hepatitis C virus (HCV) is usually asymptomatic, it is difficult to identify and target infected individuals. However the need to understand the response to infection in a diverse population, the development of prospectively followed cohorts and focused multi-disciplinary research is very important.
The Subcommittee was very supportive of this concept and unanimously approved it.
Finally, Dr. James Meegan, DMID's Acute Viral Diseases Program Officer, provided an update on Federal smallpox activities (NIH participates on a working group with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy and other federal agencies). In particular, Dr.. Meegan reported on current NIAID smallpox activities, which encompass vaccine, therapeutics and genomics research. back to top |