FGCU scientists on biotech's cutting edge

Florida Gulf Coast University received a $1.5 million grant in the Spring to continue research that will help develop the United States' biodefense potential and provide new technologies with civilian applications.

It could also spell the cure for Dengue fever, influenza and a variety of other infectious diseases.

Professor Jose Barreto, and associate professors of biotechnology Sharon Isern and Scott Michael are researching ways to keep viruses from attaching themselves to human cells.

Isern and Michael have already applied for one patent - FGCU's first in its brief history. It could, after years of testing and government approvals, be the basis of a new drug.

The scientists work with low risk viruses - parts of infectious viruses that won't make you sick - out of the university's biosafety level-2 labs. When they need to have tests done on the real virus, a safe lab - where scientists don space suits in highly secure facilities, similar to the labs in the film "Outbreak" - does the work. Most of it goes to the University of Texas at Galveston, which houses one of the four level-4 labs in North America.

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.