Recent Expansion
Formation of the Faculty of Infectious Diseases, an initiative of the Office of the Vice President for Research, coincides with several recent research developments at UGA and in Georgia: opening of the Animal Health Research Center, a state-of-the-art biocontainment facility for studies of animal and human health; the re-deployment of Riverbend South as an infectious disease research facility; and recruitment of Egbert Mundt, one of the world’s foremost experts in poultry vaccines as GRA Eminent Scholar in poultry medicine. In addition, UGA and Emory University researchers last year received one of six Centers of Excellence in Influenza Research and Surveillance grants funded by the National Institutes of Health to bolster understanding of how the influenza virus causes disease and how the human immune system responds to infection with the virus. The Georgia Research Alliance, a partnership of academic research universities, industry, and state government, last year launched a new statewide initiative for vaccine development, and UGA is leading the state’s bid to bring the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) to Athens. NBAF is a proposed national facility dedicated to research on foreign animal and zoonotic diseases.