BWF / Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease - Limited Submission Internal Due Date
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This program provides opportunities for assistant professors to bring multidisciplinary approaches to the study of human infectious diseases. The goal of the program is to provide opportunities for accomplished investigators still early in their careers to study the pathogenesis of infectious disease at its most fundamental level - the points where human and microbial systems connect. The program supports research that sheds light on the fundamentals that affect the outcomes of this encounter: how colonization, infection, commensalism, and other relationships play out at levels ranging from molecular interactions to systemic ones. BWF is particularly interested in work focused on the host, as well as host-pathogen studies originating in viral, bacterial, fungal, or parasite systems. Studies supported by the program may have their roots in the pathogen, but the focus of the work should be on the interplay of host and microbe.
While work on AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and microbes of interest for biodefense is allowed, the program emphasizes areas of research that open up unexplored areas of pathogenesis. Nominating institutions should note that research on underfunded and understudied organisms is especially of interest: proposed work in well-funded systems may be viewed as less relevant to the program's goals. Research on understudied infectious diseases, including pathogenic fungi, protozoan and metazoan diseases, and emerging infections is especially of interest. In addition, excellent animal models of human disease, including work done in veterinary research settings, are within the program's scope. Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged.
The awards are intended to give recipients the freedom and flexibility to pursue high-risk projects and new avenues of inquiry. Work supported will be efforts that have the potential to significantly advance the understanding of how microbes and the human system interact, especially in the context of infection. Biochemical, pharmacological, molecular, genetic, immunologic, and other approaches are all appropriate for support by the program. Areas of particular interest include the following:
1. Cell/Pathogen interactions - studies of host responses at the cell surface, cell signaling in response to infection, microbial persistence in host cells, and other work.
2. Host/Pathogen interactions - studies of how host genetics influences resistance and susceptibility to infection, innate and adaptive immune responses to microbes, pathogen modulation of the immune system, and other work.
3. Novel routes to disease causation - studies of the role of infectious agents in the etiology of chronic, autoimmune, and immunologic diseases, and other work.
Approaches that fit into these frameworks might include the study of host susceptibility to particular pathogens, host resistance to chronic or acute disease, or basic studies of infectious microbes - as long as the work is oriented toward understanding how the organism interacts with the host. Virulence factors, immune mechanisms, and genetic studies in microbes and the host all provide fertile ground for this kind of study.
