The Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases focuses its research on efforts to eradicate some of the world’s most pernicious and deadly diseases, including malaria and African sleeping sickness.

Many of the center’s programs involve on-site studies in other countries, among them Argentina, Kenya, Colombia, Peru, Haiti, Guyana and Brazil. The center also plays a leading role in developing programs in bioinformatics and genomics to identify target goals and tools for detecting, treating, and preventing widespread, complex parasitic diseases.  

Worth noting: The center is part of the Paul D. Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, the centerpiece of the University of Georgia’s interdisciplinary biomedical enterprise. The center includes molecular technology and flow cytometry core facilities, which serve the research needs of more than 40 laboratories and companies.

Institutions involved: University of Georgia  

Research focus: The center sponsors a wide range of research programs that focus largely on the immunology, biochemistry and molecular and cellular biology of protozoan and metazoan parasites, and their vectors (the organisms that spread these diseases).

Examples of diseases being studied at the center include leishmaniasis, malaria, American trypanosomiasis (Chagas disease), African trypanosomiasis (African sleeping sickness), schistosomiasis, cryptosporidiosiis, lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), and toxoplasmosis.  

GRA investment: GRA Eminent Scholar Roberto Docampo is a member of the center’s core team. In addition, GRA has invested $1.1 million in the Center’s core facilities.

External funding: Research programs at the center are funded through a number of sources, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the World Health Organization, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the United States Department of Agriculture, Merck and the Sanford and Barbara Orkin Foundation.  Since 2000, the center has attracted more than $50 million in non-state funding.  The most recent grant -- for $18.2 million --is from the BIll and Melinda Gates Foundation for the study of schistosomiasis.  It is the largest biomedical grant in the University of Georgia's history.

Web site: http://www.ctegd.uga.edu