FGCU earns $1.5 million grant for biodefense

Sharon Isern Florida Gulf Coast University was presented with a check for $1.5 million for Dual-Use Technologies Project to conduct research that will help develop the United States' biodefense potential and provide new technologies with civilian applications.

The work of professor Jose Barreto, and associate professors of biotechnology Sharon Isern and Scott Michael was featured by Florida Weekly in July. The trio are researching ways to keep viruses from attaching themselves to human cells.

FGCU researchers purposely designed the program to have dual use applications, which are technologies and capabilities that have both military and civilian uses. FGCU scientists will use federally approved benign surrogates to develop biodefense technologies that help expand and enhance the U.S.'s security biological capabilities. FGCU will not use real biological agents.

There is a critical need for new technologies that can be used for the rapid detection, immobilization, and destruction of bio-threat agents, toxins and pathogens important to biodefense efforts and public health. The specific surface structural properties of pathogenic microbes can be used to develop new types of specific-binding molecular recognition devices that can be attached to surfaces, tethered to signaling or disinfection systems, or utilized as free chemistries to detect, capture, or destroy pathogens of interest.

Scott Michael FGCU has established the capability to develop and test new biocides, platform sensor technologies, and binding/inactivating complexes that can be utilized both individually, and as combined technologies. These new technologies can be used to develop new pathogen detection, capture and destruction instruments. The Biotechnology Research Group at Florida Gulf Coast University has assembled a team of chemists, molecular biologists, and virologists to address these questions.

FGCU scientists believe their work will further develop research opportunities for students, contribute to meeting the national need for the pursuit of quantitative sciences and math, increase technologies that improve public health around the nation, enhance understanding of issues that will affect life for the rest of the century, and contribute to developing an informed public.