A University of Kansas School of Medicine researcher is leading a multi-institutional team of scientists in designing new ways to identify potential new drugs to block the anthrax toxin molecules from causing cell death.

Although human and animal vaccines for anthrax have existed for more than a hundred years, concern about anthrax has been renewed in the post-9/11 era of heightened public awareness surrounding biological and chemical weapons. In nature, anthrax endospores can remain dormant in soil for decades, infecting plant-eating animals through ingestion, inhalation, or injured skin. In 2011, anthrax-laced letters were sent to several national media outlets and government offices in a bioterrorist act that claimed five lives, including two postal workers and a hospital employee.
Mark Fisher, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, is working with postdoctoral fellows Narahari Akkaledevi and Srayanta Mukherjee at KU Medical Center and Wonpil Im, associate professor in bioinformatics at KU’s Lawrence campus. Also collaborating on the project are Ed Gogol, associate professor in biophysics at University of Missouri-Kansas City; R. John Collier, professor of microbiology at Harvard; Brad Pentelute, assistant professor in the chemistry department at MIT; and Steve Ludtke, professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics at Baylor. Read more.