For more than 30 years, Dr. Paul Hoffman and his team have been battling the ever-changing force of infectious diseases.
Infectious diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide, and an increasingly serious threat in Canada. "With antibiotic resistance on the rise, public health experts predict that the drugs we're using now won't work for a quarter of life-threatening infections in 15 years," says Dalhousie scientist Dr. Paul Hoffman. "The need for new drugs to combat these, and emerging infectious diseases, is urgent."
Dr. Hoffman recently launched a new centre for infectious diseases research at Dalhousie University. More than 20 researchers are now working in the Centre for Functional Microbial Genomics and Host Defense. They are using new DNA sequencing facilities and other equipment to learn how infectious diseases develop and spread, how they interact with the immune system, and how they become resistant to antibiotics.
"Learning how infectious pathogens work will help us find targets for a whole new generation of antimicrobial drugs," Dr. Hoffman says. "We'll also use this knowledge to develop new vaccines and even therapies for cancer." In fact, Dr. Hoffman has found a way to turn a gene from a harmful bacterium - “ the one that causes stomach ulcers – into a promising new cancer therapy.
"The sophisticated equipment in our new research facilities accelerates our rate of discovery and takes us places we could never go without it," Dr. Hoffman says. "These core facilities are now being used by researchers throughout Dalhousie University, and have helped us recruit several extremely bright young scientists to the Faculty of Medicine."