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sector_ico_Health_trans Human Health

Functional Genomics for Emerging Infectious Diseases (PREPARE) Project

042EID
  • Project Leaders: Brett Finlay, Neil Reiner, Robert Brunham
  • Institutions: University of British Columbia (UBC)
  • Budget: $6966074
  • Program/Competition: Large Scale Competitions
  • Genome Centre(s): Genome Canada
  • Status: Closed

As a global community, we are constantly fighting infectious diseases that threaten health and reduce productivity. Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) include drug resistant staph (MRSA), pandemic influenza, pathogenic E. coli, and mad cow disease (BSE). Few new antimicrobial drugs or new vaccines have emerged in recent decades and this UBC-led PRoteomics for Emerging PAthogen Response (PREPARE) team developed a new strategy to identify targets in microbial pathogens, which could ultimately leading to the novel therapeutics. Combining with new bioinformatics databases and tools, this team used MRSA as the model pathogen to construct a MRSA protein interaction network (PIN) for identifying a list of MRSA hub proteins as potential drug targets. This project validated one drug target, generated new intellectual property and 12 publications. The knowledge gained from this project was directly applicable to the private sectors for novel therapeutics and vaccines development for emerging infectious diseases. The GE3LS and Socioeconomics Benefits (SEB) research of this project led to a follow-on $15 million federal funding to the Networks of Centres of Excellence to create Pan-provincial Vaccine Enterprise (PREVENT).