Aug 12, 2010 09:54 GMT  ·  By

For better defining changes in the human immune system in response to infection or to vaccination, the United States will grant a total of $100 million to six US-based Human Immune Phenotyping Centers for research using human and not animal studies.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act supports the first year of this experiment through funding from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.

The samples used for this research will be representative for different populations in terms of age, gender, genetics and ethnicity, as they will be collected from well-defined groups such as children, alders and people with autoimmune diseases.

The response of the immune system will be analyzed before and after the exposure to naturally acquired infections, to vaccines or vaccine components and the model that will emerge will be based on the most sophisticated and comprehensive analysis available.

As this study will focus on the immune response to viruses and bacteria such as influenza, pneumococcus or the West Nile virus, it will facilitate the development of not only individual vaccines but of the immunization process in general.

The NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, MD, said that “recognizing the differences in immune system activity before, during and after exposure to an infectious agent or vaccine will help in the development of safer, more effective therapeutics and vaccines, [and so] this research effort also will contribute to the ongoing evolution in our ability to study the immune system.”

All data collected and analyzed by the research centers will be gathered in a centralized infrastructure and eventually into a web-based database, making it available to the scientific community for future immunology research.

Daniel Rotrosen, MD, director of the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation at NIAID, says that “this research effort represents a major expansion of efforts to define the principles of human immune regulation, instead of relying on findings from animal models that have limitations and cannot always be extrapolated to people.

“The knowledge gained also will improve our understanding of the range of vaccine responses in particular sub-populations, including newborns, young children, the elderly, patients taking immunosuppressive medications and those with underlying diseases of the immune system, such as allergy and autoimmune diseases.”

Part of this $100 million funding will support smaller studies proposed by investigators outside the program, like pilot projects, clinical studies and the development of research resources.