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Alessandro Sette, Dr. Biol.Sc., and his laboratory study ways to fight diseases by understanding the immune response, measuring immune activity, and developing disease intervention strategies against a number of new and emerging infectious diseases. These include Influenza, arena viruses, a family of viruses responsible for hemorrhagic fever and meningitis, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) as well as diseases of renewed interest, such as smallpox, because of the growing threat of bioterrorism. The laboratory is defining in chemical terms what murine, non-human primate and human immune system recognizes and uses this knowledge to measure and understand anti-pathogen immune responses. This approach is helping unlock the mysteries of how the body successfully battles infection, and conversely, how pathogens escape the immune system, causing the individual to succumb to disease. Form this data, Sette and his team believe their research will lead to development of new therapeutic and prophylactic approaches to fighting infectious diseases.

A major focus of the Sette's group is also the design and population of the Immune Epitope Database, developed under a NIAID contract. The database allows researchers around the world to quickly access key information on the way the body responds to disease-causing agents, especially those that are responsible for emerging infectious diseases, or that are part of potential bioterrorist threats. By allowing researchers to share and analyze data in this unprecedented manner, the database provides an important tool for accelerating the development and improvement of vaccines.

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BREAKTHROUGH: Emerging and Infectious Disease
The IEDB is groundbreaking because it contains antibody and T cell epitope data curated from scientific literature, presented collectively to facilitate basic research.  The database interface is designed to be intuitive and easily searched, to propel the dissemination of immune epitope information, the generation of new research tools, diagnostic techniques, vaccines and therapeutics for emerging and re-emerging diseases.  Center for Infectious Disease