Battling Infectious Diseases

The source of these pathogens can be natural (for example, ticks that carry Lyme disease) or manmade (for example, biological weapons such as anthrax). Scientific objectives include the following:

• Preventing epidemics and pandemics caused by human contact with animals or through bioterrorism.
• Unlocking the mysteries behind disease-causing bacteria and viruses, as well as diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
• Understanding and countering subtle or dramatic changes in the environment that facilitate disease in humans and animals.
• Overcoming social unrest caused by biologically driven natural or manmade disasters (such as the destruction of a nation’s agriculture).

• Designed chimeric antimicrobial proteins that rapidly eliminate bacteria from infected sites in plants and humans
• Developed polymeric chelators for radioisotope delivery systems that have applications in medical imaging and in vivo cancer therapy
• Created the High-Throughput Laboratory Network, which is designed to monitor pathogens responsible for influenza in animals and humans
• Developed an optical biosensor that detects protein toxins and biological pathogens
• Created the world’s first Portable Acoustic Cytometer that can perform high-throughput screening of possible new drugs, as well as cancer markers and infectious agents
• Invented SOFIA (surround optical fiber immunoassay) that helps detect prion diseases (such as fatal neurodegenerative disease) in animals and humans
• Developed EPiSimS, an agent-based simulation engine designed to help assess disease prevention, intervention, and response strategies
• Invented EpiCast, an epidemiological forecasting simulation model that can model potential bioterrorist attacks to help decision makers formulate effective countermeasures
• Working to understand the viral factors that facilitate transmission of HIV infection to develop preventative approaches, including possible vaccines, to curtail this epidemic

• Center for Bio-Security Science: Activities at this center include modeling infection and immune response, surveying and managing diseases, and developing vaccines and other forms of therapeutics.
• Pathogen Research Databases: Los Alamos has in place extensive databases that cover HIV, Hepatitis C, influenza, oral pathogens (both bacterial and viral), and bacteria and viruses responsible for sexually transmitted diseases.
• High-Throughput Gene Cloning and Protein Production Facility: This facility serves the Tuberculosis Structural Genomics Consortium and the Integrated Center for Structure and Function Innovation. Scientists here collaborate with various universities and other national laboratories to better-understand how proteins work, as these are considered the “machines of life.”
• Los Alamos Molecular Recognition Alliance: The objective of this alliance is to develop “affinity reagents” (molecular alternatives to antibodies) to counter diseases. Los Alamos has developed reagents that counter cholera, plague, anthrax, influenza, and Hantavirus.
• National Flow Cytometry Resource: This resource uses flow cytometry to analyze bacteria, viruses, and other particles for applications such as analyzing and identifying microbes, performing bacterial fingerprinting and forensics, and conducting cell and cancer biology.
• Protein Crystallography Station: This facility uses neutron diffraction techniques to perform groundbreaking work in new drug-design methods

• Alan Perelson and Ruy Ribeiro: Modeling of infection and immune response; understanding the dynamics of viral infections
• Chang-Shung Tung: Modeling of structure and interaction of virulence factors
• Kristin Omberg: Biodetection systems engineering
• John Ambrosiano: Analytical approaches to food security
• Helen Cui: Biothreat nonproliferation
• Scott White: Classified computing for biosecurity
• Jeanne Fair: Avian immunology and host range
• Murray Wolinsky: Nucleic acid signature and assay design/analysis for biothreat detection, forensics, and diagnostics
• Judith Cohn: Integration of biological databases and high-throughput computational analysis
• Carla Kuiken: Viral evolution, biological database, and tool development
• Bette Korber and Tanmoy Bhattacharya: Evolutionary biology and vaccine design
• Alan Lapedes: Antigenic, genetic, and structural characterization of HIV-1 neutralization data
• Elizabeth Hong-Geller: Host pathology biology (personal homepage)
• Norman Dogett: detection and forensics
• Bob Williams: biological and chemical toxicology

• National Institutes of Health
• National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
• Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology

• 2011 Distinguished Patent Award for a highly engineered version of a green fluorescent protein (isolated from luminescent jellyfish) that can be used to better understand the underpinnings of disease