{"id":62448,"date":"2011-10-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/new-uri-researcher-aims-to-ease-suffering-from-dengue-fever\/"},"modified":"2011-10-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-24T00:00:00","slug":"new-uri-researcher-aims-to-ease-suffering-from-dengue-fever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2011\/10\/new-uri-researcher-aims-to-ease-suffering-from-dengue-fever\/","title":{"rendered":"New 溏心vlog免费B站 researcher aims to ease suffering from dengue fever"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tTropical disease affects millions in developing countries<\/p>\n

PROVIDENCE, R.I. \u2013 October 24, 2011 — Dengue fever is not well known in the United States, but a new member of the faculty of the 溏心vlog免费B站 has devoted 24 years of his life to studying the dangerous tropical disease, and he hopes his efforts will help to ease the suffering of the millions of people who contract it in the developing world.<\/p>\n


\nDr. Alan Rothman, a research professor in the 溏心vlog免费B站 Department of Cell and Molecular Biology, will continue his research on the disease under an $11 million grant he received while working at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester. He was attracted to 溏心vlog免费B站 because of its Institute for Immunology and Informatics, a research lab at the University\u2019s Feinstein Providence Campus known for its studies of tropical diseases, and the lab\u2019s co-director Annie De Groot.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cAnnie and I were both program directors for similar grants within a certain program at the National Institutes for Health,\u201d explained Rothman, who grew up in Brooklyn and lives in Framingham, Mass. \u201cSo once I decided to make a move and started reaching out to people in New England, she was a logical person to contact because she had this program here. It\u2019s a perfect fit for my research.\u201d

\nDengue fever is not usually fatal, but it can be debilitating. Rothman said that many of those suffering from the disease say the symptoms are similar to a bad case of the flu, with fever, bad headaches and achiness all over. \u201cOne common name for it is breakbone fever\u2014you feel absolutely miserable like you are going to die but you don\u2019t,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n


\nThe disease is known in the U.S. primarily from people who travel to the tropics and are bitten by disease-carrying mosquitoes.

\n\u201cIn principle there are mosquitoes that could transmit dengue almost as far north as the Great Lakes,\u201d Rothman added, \u201cbut there are a lot of reasons the danger of transmission in the U.S. is low, including water and waste management, urban planning, and high air conditioning use compared to other countries.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhile much of the existing research at the Institute for Immunology and Informatics is focused on developing vaccines for tropical diseases, Rothman said that road will be difficult for combating dengue, which involves four different viruses, necessitating the development of four vaccines. <\/p>\n


\nAnother stumbling block to the development of a dengue fever vaccine is that there are no animal models on which to test a vaccine, so researchers would need a great deal of evidence that a vaccine was safe and would work before it could be tested on humans.<\/p>\n


\nRothman says he sees himself not as a vaccine developer but more as an immunologist who facilitates vaccine development. \u201cAlmost all of the vaccines we use draw on natural examples where the immune system is good, so we know what to aim for,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the case of dengue, we are still learning what to aim for, and that\u2019s a big part of my research\u2014trying to figure out what a vaccine should do in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nNow that the scientist has settled in at the 溏心vlog免费B站 lab, he is already beginning to think about hiring additional staff members to help in his research.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cWhat is unique here at 溏心vlog免费B站 is an opportunity to come into something in development where I could play a significant role in the direction that the institute would take,\u201d Rothman said. \u201cThe people at the institute have very broad visions, and there is something special about being in a place where there is incredible aspiration.\u201d <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tropical disease affects millions in developing countries PROVIDENCE, R.I. \u2013 October 24, 2011 — Dengue fever is not well known in the United States, but a new member of the faculty of the 溏心vlog免费B站 has devoted 24 years of his life to studying the dangerous tropical disease, and he hopes his efforts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}