|
|
NIAID Funds STD Research
Click here to view original press release.
Accession Number
A00246
Author
National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
Source
NIAID Press Release
Release Date
September 9, 1995
Major Descriptors
Epidemiology
Prevention
Research strategy
STDs
Trial sites
Topic
Prevention
Text
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has established seven Sexually Transmitted Diseases Cooperative Research Centers (STD CRCs) to support collaborative multidisciplinary studies on these serious infections.
Research teams in Seattle, Wash., Birmingham, Ala., Bloomington, Ind., Boston, Mass., Baltimore, Md., Chapel Hill, N.C., and Pittsburgh, Pa., will receive awards totaling an estimated $6.2 million in first-year funding.
Scientists estimate that 12 million new cases of STDs, including 40,000 new cases of infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), will occur in the United States in 1995. "Despite decades of research, prevention and control programs, rates of STD infection continue to grow in some populations. The emergence of AIDS, a new and fatal STD, further challenges control efforts," says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of NIAID. "A multidisciplinary approach to research programs will utilize the expertise from many different scientific areas to meet these challenges more effectively."
Although different STDs present unique diagnostic, therapeutic and prevention challenges, all STDs share a common mode of transmission. "A research program that addresses these diseases as a group is likely to be highly productive because populations at risk for one STD are at risk for others, and the presence of one infection may influence the acquisition and natural history of another," says Penny J. Hitchcock, D.V.M., chief of the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Branch and coordinator of the NIAID projects.
Research in the STD CRCs will focus on the four objectives of the NIAID STD program, which include prevention of infertility, adverse outcomes of pregnancy, cancer of the cervix and other anogenital sites, and HIV infection. Behavioral research efforts are a key component in each of the STD CRCs.
The new STD centers will provide investigators in several disciplines the opportunity to work together more effectively by (1) bridging basic biomedical, clinical, behavioral and epidemiological research; (2) promoting productive collaborations; and (3) facilitating the development of intervention-oriented research.
The goal of this research is to expand understanding of STDs in areas where scientists potentially can develop and improve interventions to reduce the incidence of these diseases and their consequences, especially for women.
The STD CRCs will focus on a myriad of STD-related issues. Researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle, will study issues ranging from the prevention of reproductive tract infections and diseases in women to the clinical epidemiology, immunobiology and pathogenesis of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, chlamydial infection and gonorrhea.
At the University of Alabama, Birmingham, researchers will evaluate the microbial etiology of non-gonococcal urethritis in pathogenesis of bacterial vaginosis. In addition, they will evaluate, in a randomized clinical trial, a targeted behavioral intervention to reduce risk for recurrent urethritis among men.
At the Midwest STD CRC in Bloomington, Ind., investigators with different STD-related scientific backgrounds and interests will concentrate on finding new approaches to primary and secondary STD prevention. Two projects will focus on diseases associated with genital ulcers, while others aim to provide better understanding of the pathogenesis of gonorrhea and different aspects of HPV infection.
Scientists at Boston University School of Medicine's STD CRC will focus on the clinical, basic biomedical and behavioral questions associated with two major STD pathogens, chlamydia and gonococcus, while investigators at Johns Hopkins University will attempt to improve the understanding, prevention and control of chlamydial infections, gonorrhea and HPV infections.
Scientists at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill will work on new strategies to prevent STDs, and researchers at the STD CRC at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine will focus on adverse outcomes of pregnancy, vaginal ecology and STDs in adolescent populations.
The STD CRCs and their principal investigators are as follows:
o University of Washington, Seattle King K. Holmes, M.D., Ph.D.
o University of Alabama at Birmingham Edward W. Hook III, M.D.
o Indiana University, Bloomington Robert B. Jones, M.D., Ph.D.
o Boston University School of Medicine Peter A. Rice, M.D.
o Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. Keerti V. Shah, M.D., Dr. P.H.
o University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill P. Frederick Sparling, M.D.
o University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine Richard L. Sweet, M.D.
These new projects are part of a comprehensive NIAID research agenda to prevent and control STDs, including AIDS. Other efforts include the development of topical microbicides, chemicals that a woman can use in her vagina before sexual intercourse to thwart infectious microbes that cause diseases such as gonorrhea, syphilis and genital herpes. In addition, NIAID supports research to develop new tests to quickly and cheaply diagnose STDs, and behavioral studies to identify strategies to prevent STDs.
NIAID, a component of the National Institutes of Health, supports investigators and scientific studies at universities, medical schools, hospitals and research institutions in the United States and abroad aimed at preventing, diagnosing and treating such illnesses as AIDS, tuberculosis and asthma as well as allergies. NIH is an agency of the U.S. Public Health Service, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
### For press inquiries only, please contact Jack Hilovsky at 301-402-1663.
|