Bucks boost BioShield: Feds focus on biodefense
By Stephen Pounds
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Uncle Sam has been biotechnology's biggest sugar daddy for the past 30 years. These days, though, he's got other priorities.
Areas of research such as Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer, diabetes, obesity, the human genome, women's health and AIDS all have been squeezed by flat or diminishing budgets.
But there is one area that's built a fatter piggy bank over the past three fiscal years: biodefense.
As executives at this week's convention in Chicago of the Biotechnology Industry Organization court investors at the world's largest annual gathering of biotech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, they need look no further for money than the Bush administration's program to defend the country from biological attack.
"We believe fully... that this is worth supporting, although we certainly acknowledge the death rates and despair of these other diseases," said Monique Mansoura, senior planner with the Department of Health and Human Services.
As a result of this new pot of money, scientists are fleeing other medical research to get their share of biodefense dollars. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health that administers the program, said the number of grants to develop vaccines for bioterror agents rose to 887 in 2005 from 190 in 2002.
That was one of the program's chief goals, officials said.
"There's a good reason for people to be working on pandemic flu or SARS. That's what's out there," said John McGowan, a deputy director at the institute. "Part of the new funding for biodefense was meant to build a larger cadre of scientists in infectious diseases."
Those on the receiving end of biodefense money say it's just another research resource, but others contend the initiative is misdirected. They would rather see that money used to fight a large range of health and medical problems already afflicting Americans.
"Being affected by a bioterrorism agent is quite remote," said Alan Leonard, a professor of molecular biology at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. "You're more likely to have your kid pick up something in a swimming pool where a baby has a leaky diaper."
Leonard and more than 700 other scientists who oppose President Bush's program signed an open letter of protest to HHS Secretary Elias Zerhouni in Science magazine last month.
Biodefense has been part of military planning for decades, but it took on national urgency with the October 2001 anthrax attacks that left five people dead, including supermarket tabloid photo editor Bob Stevens of Lantana. Stevens contracted the disease after he opened an anthrax-laced letter while working at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton.
In his State of the Union address three years ago, Bush announced Project BioShield, an ambitious plan to protect Americans from the threat of bioweapons. Bush pumped $1.5 billion into biodefense research in 2003 and bumped it up to $1.8 billion this year, targeting vaccine development against agents such as anthrax, smallpox, plague, tularemia, ricin and botulinum.
In July 2004, Congress passed the first BioShield appropriation, a whopping $5.6 billion over 10 years to accumulate a vast store of vaccines.
"Pre 9-11, public health issues were seen in a different prism in Washington than security issues," said Brad Smith, a policy analyst at the Center for Biosecurity, a University of Pittsburgh-affiliated think tank in Baltimore. "After 9-11, those two worlds came together."
Though Florida is 36th among the states in biodefense dollars, it received $20.5 million for research into bioterrorism agents from 2003 to 2005. The University of Florida was the largest single recipient, with $9.8 million.
UF scientists are part of a consortium called the Southeast Regional Center of Excellence for Emerging Infections and Biodefense. It is one of eight virtual labs across the country in which new vaccines, diagnostics and treatments are being developed against potential bioterrorism agents. The colleges, with Duke University as the lead lab, will share $75 million over six years.
One of those to benefit from biodefense is Richard Moyer, associate dean of the UF College of Medicine. He will bring in $3 million over six years for work on poxvirus, the group of viruses that includes smallpox. He and UF also are receiving almost $800,000 over the period to cover administrative costs.
"I was lucky my research dealt with one of the (potential bioterrorism) agents," Moyer said.
Fractal Systems, a biotech firm in Safety Harbor, near Tampa, also was one of the lucky ones. It received $434,308 last year to study the possibility of creating nano-sized DNA detectors to scope out organisms common to smallpox, plague and other viruses.
"Say there's a bioterrorist attack, and people are sick, and they don't know why. We are developing sensors that can detect a range of viruses," said Matt Aldissi, president of Fractal.
The government grant makes up one-third of Aldissi's $1.2 million budget and helps retain six researchers who might have fled for other companies without it. Eight-year-old Fractal has been dependent on federal grants from the start.
"We check the kind of solicitations the government is making. That's the kind of business we're in. If we find something that's available for what we do, then we apply for it," Aldissi said.
Still, the bulging federal purse for biodefense bothers some scientists.
Julie Maupin-Furlow, a microbial physiologist at UF, signed the open letter in Science because she believes there is not enough money for fundamental research into proteins and cell interaction, which form the basis for many therapeutic treatments.
"You are really losing basic science," she said. "It's a shame that research dollars can be so rapidly shifted at the whim of politics. It's scary."
What worsens the situation is the lack of money for NIH research into health and medical areas outside of infectious diseases. The projected 2007 budget for research into Alzheimer's, breast cancer, Parkinson's disease, tuberculosis and other problems is flat or down from previous years.
"Now we're fighting to take away grants from Harvard, Yale and Washington University in St. Louis, and Florida isn't doing so great," said Richard Bookman, associate dean of research at the University of Miami. Bush administration officials counter that such fears are misplaced.
The budget for traditional research of infectious diseases has grown, they argue, and the biodefense budget is new money. In 2005, biodefense grants amounted to $484 million, a tenfold increase over just $46 million in 2002. Grant money for traditional research edged up that same year to $1.6 billion from $1.4 billion.
Kim Janda, a professor at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., which is building a Florida campus in Jupiter, has frequently received federal grant money. He co-discovered a chemical in tobacco that might lessen the effects of Alzheimer's disease, and he invented a pocket-sized kit for detecting deadly sarin gas.
At the same time, Janda discovered human antibodies that can detect the presence of anthrax, and he did it in 2002 — before the biodefense buildup. He doesn't care where the money comes from to support the Janda Group at Scripps as long as he can continue to work in his specialized area of science.
"When you're looking for funding, you look for new avenues that are within your specialized program," Janda said.
Other scientists also are happy to have the federal cash, no matter what it's intended for.
Tim Cross, a chemistry professor at Florida State University's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, has received a bioterror grant that amounts to almost $400,000 a year for a five-year period. The grant will finance the study of a protein on the surface of viruses that helps them invade healthy cells.
Cross said the money also helps pay for 14 researchers and the summer salaries of faculty members.
"There's a wide range of people being supported by this grant," he said.
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Uncle Sam has been biotechnology's biggest sugar daddy for the past 30 years. These days, though, he's got other priorities.
Areas of research such as Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer, diabetes, obesity, the human genome, women's health and AIDS all have been squeezed by flat or diminishing budgets.
But there is one area that's built a fatter piggy bank over the past three fiscal years: biodefense.
As executives at this week's convention in Chicago of the Biotechnology Industry Organization court investors at the world's largest annual gathering of biotech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, they need look no further for money than the Bush administration's program to defend the country from biological attack.
"We believe fully... that this is worth supporting, although we certainly acknowledge the death rates and despair of these other diseases," said Monique Mansoura, senior planner with the Department of Health and Human Services.
As a result of this new pot of money, scientists are fleeing other medical research to get their share of biodefense dollars. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health that administers the program, said the number of grants to develop vaccines for bioterror agents rose to 887 in 2005 from 190 in 2002.
That was one of the program's chief goals, officials said.
"There's a good reason for people to be working on pandemic flu or SARS. That's what's out there," said John McGowan, a deputy director at the institute. "Part of the new funding for biodefense was meant to build a larger cadre of scientists in infectious diseases."
Those on the receiving end of biodefense money say it's just another research resource, but others contend the initiative is misdirected. They would rather see that money used to fight a large range of health and medical problems already afflicting Americans.
"Being affected by a bioterrorism agent is quite remote," said Alan Leonard, a professor of molecular biology at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. "You're more likely to have your kid pick up something in a swimming pool where a baby has a leaky diaper."
Leonard and more than 700 other scientists who oppose President Bush's program signed an open letter of protest to HHS Secretary Elias Zerhouni in Science magazine last month.
Biodefense has been part of military planning for decades, but it took on national urgency with the October 2001 anthrax attacks that left five people dead, including supermarket tabloid photo editor Bob Stevens of Lantana. Stevens contracted the disease after he opened an anthrax-laced letter while working at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton.
In his State of the Union address three years ago, Bush announced Project BioShield, an ambitious plan to protect Americans from the threat of bioweapons. Bush pumped $1.5 billion into biodefense research in 2003 and bumped it up to $1.8 billion this year, targeting vaccine development against agents such as anthrax, smallpox, plague, tularemia, ricin and botulinum.
In July 2004, Congress passed the first BioShield appropriation, a whopping $5.6 billion over 10 years to accumulate a vast store of vaccines.
"Pre 9-11, public health issues were seen in a different prism in Washington than security issues," said Brad Smith, a policy analyst at the Center for Biosecurity, a University of Pittsburgh-affiliated think tank in Baltimore. "After 9-11, those two worlds came together."
Though Florida is 36th among the states in biodefense dollars, it received $20.5 million for research into bioterrorism agents from 2003 to 2005. The University of Florida was the largest single recipient, with $9.8 million.
UF scientists are part of a consortium called the Southeast Regional Center of Excellence for Emerging Infections and Biodefense. It is one of eight virtual labs across the country in which new vaccines, diagnostics and treatments are being developed against potential bioterrorism agents. The colleges, with Duke University as the lead lab, will share $75 million over six years.
One of those to benefit from biodefense is Richard Moyer, associate dean of the UF College of Medicine. He will bring in $3 million over six years for work on poxvirus, the group of viruses that includes smallpox. He and UF also are receiving almost $800,000 over the period to cover administrative costs.
"I was lucky my research dealt with one of the (potential bioterrorism) agents," Moyer said.
Fractal Systems, a biotech firm in Safety Harbor, near Tampa, also was one of the lucky ones. It received $434,308 last year to study the possibility of creating nano-sized DNA detectors to scope out organisms common to smallpox, plague and other viruses.
"Say there's a bioterrorist attack, and people are sick, and they don't know why. We are developing sensors that can detect a range of viruses," said Matt Aldissi, president of Fractal.
The government grant makes up one-third of Aldissi's $1.2 million budget and helps retain six researchers who might have fled for other companies without it. Eight-year-old Fractal has been dependent on federal grants from the start.
"We check the kind of solicitations the government is making. That's the kind of business we're in. If we find something that's available for what we do, then we apply for it," Aldissi said.
Still, the bulging federal purse for biodefense bothers some scientists.
Julie Maupin-Furlow, a microbial physiologist at UF, signed the open letter in Science because she believes there is not enough money for fundamental research into proteins and cell interaction, which form the basis for many therapeutic treatments.
"You are really losing basic science," she said. "It's a shame that research dollars can be so rapidly shifted at the whim of politics. It's scary."
What worsens the situation is the lack of money for NIH research into health and medical areas outside of infectious diseases. The projected 2007 budget for research into Alzheimer's, breast cancer, Parkinson's disease, tuberculosis and other problems is flat or down from previous years.
"Now we're fighting to take away grants from Harvard, Yale and Washington University in St. Louis, and Florida isn't doing so great," said Richard Bookman, associate dean of research at the University of Miami. Bush administration officials counter that such fears are misplaced.
The budget for traditional research of infectious diseases has grown, they argue, and the biodefense budget is new money. In 2005, biodefense grants amounted to $484 million, a tenfold increase over just $46 million in 2002. Grant money for traditional research edged up that same year to $1.6 billion from $1.4 billion.
Kim Janda, a professor at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., which is building a Florida campus in Jupiter, has frequently received federal grant money. He co-discovered a chemical in tobacco that might lessen the effects of Alzheimer's disease, and he invented a pocket-sized kit for detecting deadly sarin gas.
At the same time, Janda discovered human antibodies that can detect the presence of anthrax, and he did it in 2002 — before the biodefense buildup. He doesn't care where the money comes from to support the Janda Group at Scripps as long as he can continue to work in his specialized area of science.
"When you're looking for funding, you look for new avenues that are within your specialized program," Janda said.
Other scientists also are happy to have the federal cash, no matter what it's intended for.
Tim Cross, a chemistry professor at Florida State University's National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, has received a bioterror grant that amounts to almost $400,000 a year for a five-year period. The grant will finance the study of a protein on the surface of viruses that helps them invade healthy cells.
Cross said the money also helps pay for 14 researchers and the summer salaries of faculty members.
"There's a wide range of people being supported by this grant," he said.
