[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 17] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages 23478-23479] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]EARMARK DECLARATION ______ HON. BRIAN P. BILBRAY of california in the house of representatives Monday, September 29, 2008 Mr. BILBRAY. Madam Speaker, I submit the following: Requesting Member: Congressman Brian Bilbray. Bill Number:H.R. 2638, Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and continuing Appropriations Act, 2009. Account: RDT&E, Army. Legal Name of Requesting Entity: Burnham Institute for Medical Research. Address of Requesting Entity: 10901 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037. Description of Request: Recent world events have made abundantly clear the need for a deeper understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms employed by bacterial and viral pathogens that would facilitate the design of countermeasures to weaponized biological agents such as anthrax, ricin, smallpox virus, botulinum toxin or plague bacteria. Additionally, as evidenced by the ever-present threat of viral pandemics and the relentless rise of antibiotic-resistance, there is a clear and urgent need for the development of new families of therapeutic agents--antibiotics, vaccines, antitoxins and antivirals. Given the large and growing number of recalcitrant pathogens, the most useful new therapeutics are likely to have broad-spectrum efficacy; to target immutable elements of the pathogen or host; to be rapidly adaptable in the face of natural or engineered variants; and to be physically robust. To assist the United States Army in protecting our soldiers against these growing threats, I secured $2.4 million for the Infectious & Inflammatory Disease Center (IIDC) at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, which will build on its studies of diseases that result from a broad range of human pathogens. The work will define and characterize host responses to infection, including innate and adaptive immunity and inflammation, providing a molecular understanding of host-pathogen interactions. Over the next ten years, many antibiotics currently prescribed to treat bacterial infections will no longer be effective owing to microbial resistance. Drug-resistant strains of some pathogens, such as the bacteria that cause tuberculosis, and MRSA, have already appeared. Several deadly viral agents have also emerged, threatening both our soldiers in the battlefield as well as large civilian populations; and, except for some vaccines, few treatments for viral infections exist to date. With regard to infectious diseases, a major goal of the IIDC is to discover, characterize and validate novel virulence factors and toxins from infectious agents, working closely with our bioinformatics group who annotate (attempt to assign function based on the DNA sequence) the rapidly expanding number of pathogen genome sequences. These combined studies facilitate the discovery of novel but conserved pathways that may be validated as targets for broad-spectrum antibiotics. Complementary strategies will be developed to produce drug-like compounds for further development, including High-Throughput Screening (HTS), `in silico' screening, and the development and application of NMR-based fragment approaches (the Institute hosts ``The San Diego Chemical Library Screening Center'', one of 5 such centers nationwide). The IIDC will continue its well-funded studies of the most likely agents of bioterrorism, including anthrax (Bacillus anthracis), smallpox (Variola virus), and plague (Yersinia pestis); but it will also expand its focus to the study of emerging diseases such as SARS, West Nile and Dengue Viruses, as well as preparing countermeasures to treat a possible influenza pandemic--should avian flu strain H5Nl gain the ability to transmit directly from person to person. A major new focus of the IIDC will be to understand and exploit host responses to infection. Human cells provide the never-ending backdrop in a contest between host-defense molecules and pathogen virulence factors that seek to subvert the host's innate and adaptive immune responses. Identifying the players and mechanisms of the natural host responses, many of which are common to a broad range of infections, may provide novel (host-targeted) leads for broad-spectrum therapeutics, the exciting possibility of naturally boosting innate immunity, as well as the discovery of novel adjuvants for vaccine design. Vaccine technology has developed little in the past 50 years. A high priority will therefore be the development of novel vaccine methodologies which employ robust single-chain antigen-adjuvant combinations that facilitate rapid production and modification in the face of engineered or mutant pathogens. The IIDC is well positioned in that it already has much of the infrastructure in place to generate novel therapeutic leads; shortly, with the opening of our new facility in Orlando, FL we will have the additional capability of developing these leads through medicinal chemistry and pharmacology to phase I trials, the latter in collaboration with our clinical partners in Florida. Additional funding made possible through this process to the IIDC will enable the expansion of our Center into a number of critical areas. Priorities include recruitment of new faculty members and their programs working in the fields of innate immunity, microbiology, and medicinal chemistry. Recruitment into these currently underrepresented areas within our Center will complement our existing expertise and further expedite the development of novel therapeutics. Leveraged Funds--Based on the Burnham Institute for Medical Research's past successful record of leveraging seed funds, we estimate that $3 million for additional scientists through this request will result in $30 million in additional grant funding for the next 10 years at the BIMR. Current/Future/Matching Funding--Private philanthropy for the San Diego, CA area has contributed to the current research work ongoing at Burnham's IIDC. Since BIMR scientists started focusing on the important area of research, the IIDC has secured nearly $40,000,000 in competitive federal grants from a number of sources including the DoD and [[Page 23479]] the NIAID. BIMR researchers and their research are very well respected throughout these federal agencies. Researchers in the IIDC will continue to seek federal grants through the traditional competitive process. this year through funding opportunities available from the DoD and the NIAID. ____________________