CDC Awards Grant to SRI International for Biodefense Research

MENLO PARK, California - November 4, 2003 - SRI International, an independent contract research organization, has been awarded a two-year, $800,000 grant by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to discover and develop new antimicrobial drugs for infections caused by bacterial biowarfare agents. The grant is part of the CDC's new $9 million Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research Grant Program, which complements the agency's ongoing bioterrorism preparedness and response program activities.

SRI has extensive experience in infectious diseases and vaccine therapies, and is a leading provider of preclinical services for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

In this investigation, titled Discovery and Development of Biodefense Antimicrobials, SRI researchers will develop new preclinical drug candidates for the treatment of infections caused by NIAID Category A pathogenic bacteria, including anthrax. New antimicrobials are needed as strains of bacteria emerge that are resistant to current antibiotics. Christopher J. Collins, Ph.D., a senior organic chemist at SRI, will serve as primary investigator with collaborators Kristien Mortelmans, Ph.D., SRI senior microbiologist, and Carol Green, Ph.D., SRI's director of metabolism and pharmacokinetics.

The antimicrobial compounds that SRI is developing have very low known occurrence of bacterial resistance and are proving to be effective against several bacterial biowarfare agents such as plague, anthrax and tularemia. SRI researchers identified these active lead compounds from antimicrobial screening of SRI's in-house chemical database, which consists of more than 10,000 compounds made under various government grants and contracts at SRI over the past 40 years in SRI's Medicinal Chemistry Department.

About SRI International and SRI's Biosciences Division
Silicon Valley-based SRI International (http://www.sri.com) is one of the world's leading independent research and technology development organizations. Founded as Stanford Research Institute in 1946, SRI has been meeting the strategic needs of clients for more than 55 years. The nonprofit research institute performs contract research and development for government agencies, commercial businesses and private foundations. In addition to conducting contract R&D, SRI licenses its technologies, forms strategic partnerships and creates spin-off companies.

SRI's Biosciences Division works with government agencies and commercial pharmaceutical companies, large and small, to provide a broad range of preclinical discovery and development services, including medicinal chemistry, custom synthesis, efficacy and safety evaluations, pharmacokinetics and metabolism studies, analytical chemistry and formulation design and production in a GLP and cGMP environment.

SRI leads PharmaSTART (www.pharmastart.org), a consortium of research organizations that offers translational drug development services to help California-based universities, research institutes and small biotech companies bridge the gap between identifying exciting new drug discoveries and bringing them successfully through clinical development.

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