Among the top priorities, according to NIAID's director of the division of microbiology and infectious diseases, Carole Heilman: an improved anthrax vaccine, an alternative smallpox vaccine, alternative smallpox drugs, and new standardized animal models for evaluating such approaches. The initiatives (www.niaid.nih.gov/dmid/bioterrorism) also call for a "rapid response" grant program that accelerates the review of funding applications, cut down from a maximum of 10 to five months. "We clearly have accelerated, on our part, the review and the reward," says Heilman. "We also have tried to streamline the amount of paperwork necessary for the investigators."
Even as bioterrorism research accelerates, it creates unique research practice dilemmas. A bill introduced last November by senators Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) seeks to establish strict new certification requirements for labs dealing with a list of designated bioterrorist agents. Speaking in December at a session on bioterrorism research at the American Society for ...
