Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases (RCEs)

In 2003, NIAID established eight Regional Centers of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases (RCEs) throughout the United States. Each Center is comprised of a consortium of universities and complementary research institutions serving a specific geographical region. The primary objective of the Centers program is to support the NIAID Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research Agenda. The Centers will build and maintain a strong infrastructure supporting multifaceted research and development activities that promote scientific discovery and translational research capacity required to create the next generation of therapeutics, vaccines, and diagnostics for the NIAID Category A-C agents. The goals of the Centers include:

• Develop and conduct programs of investigator-directed research.
• Train a new generation of science professionals to perform biodefense research activities.
• Develop and maintain comprehensive core facilities that support the Center's research and training activities, as well as other investigators in the region conducting NIAID biodefense research.
• Develop translational research capacity for testing and validating vaccine, therapeutic, and diagnostic concepts for relevant biodefense and emerging infectious diseases.
• Provide facilities and support to first-line responders in the event of a national biodefense emergency.

The research being conducted within the RCEs spans a broad range of biodefense and emerging infectious disease topics including:

• Basic research on bacterial and viral disease processes.
• New approaches to blocking the action of anthrax, botulinum, and cholera toxins.
• Developing new vaccines against anthrax, plague, tularemia, smallpox, and hemorrhagic fevers.
• Creating new immunization strategies and delivery systems.
• Generating new antibiotics and other therapeutics.
• Designing new advanced diagnostic methods and devices.
• Conducting immunological studies of host-pathogen interactions.
• Developing computational and genomic approaches for studying infectious diseases.