Regional Center of Excellence
in Infectious Disease Research
In June 2005, Colorado State University was awarded a four-year, $40 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, part of the National Institutes of Health. This grant establishes a Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases research and training.
The Rocky Mountain RCE is an intellectual center of experts from across the West who will collaborate on infectious disease research and developing defenses for biological weapons that may be used by terrorists. Already a world-leader in infectious disease research, the Rocky Mountain RCE expands the Colorado State's work research and better equips the university - and the West -- to address the national need to develop new vaccines, diagnostics and medicines for infectious diseases.
The Rocky Mountain RCE will include collaboration with national infectious disease experts -- scientists and public health practitioners -- from across the West, including:
- Colorado State University
- Centers for Disease Control - Division of Vector Borne Infectious Diseases, based in Fort Collins
- U.S. Department of Agriculture - Arthropod Borne Animal Diseases Research Laboratory
- University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
- Denver Health and Hospital Authority
- Children's Hospital
- Colorado School of Mines
- Montana State University
- University of Montana
- University of North Dakota
- University of South Dakota
- University of Utah
- Utah State University
- Brigham Young University
- University of Wyoming.
Private-sector experts from Precision Photronics Corporation in Boulder, Alexion Antibodies Technologies in San Diego and DeltaNU LLC in Laramie also will participate.
Rocky Mountain RCE scientists work at their respective universities, companies and state and federal agencies to develop new vaccines, drugs and diagnostics for emerging diseases; provide training in emerging diseases and biosecurity to scientists, physicians, veterinarians and other public health personnel throughout the region; and help state and federal agencies respond to emerging diseases.
The Rocky Mountain RCE focuses on zoonotic emerging diseases, which are diseases of animals that are transmissible to humans. Zoonotic pathogens have been the source of almost all emerging diseases throughout the world such as West Nile virus and Sin nombre hantavirus that have emerged in the Rocky Mountain region in recent years. The Rocky Mountain RCE provides a national and regional resource focusing on the diagnosis, prevention and control of these types of diseases.
The RCE complements infectious disease research already underway on Colorado State's Foothills Research Campus at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - Division of Vector Borne Infectious Diseases, as well as the university's Arthropod-borne and Infectious Diseases Laboratory and its Bioenvironmental Research Building.
