URI dengue fever researcher wins $11M grant

MOSQUITOES CAN CARRY dengue fever, which URI Professor Alan Rothman will study with an $11.4 grant from the National Institutes of Health. / COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
MOSQUITOES CAN CARRY dengue fever, which URI Professor Alan Rothman will study with an $11.4 grant from the National Institutes of Health. / COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

PROVIDENCE – A researcher of mosquito-borne illness at the University of Rhode Island has received an $11 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue his studies, his second largest grant and one of the largest ever for the university, URI announced Friday.
Professor Alan Rothman, who came to URI in 2011 from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Mass., will use the new, $11.4 million grant from NIH to continue his studies of dengue fever, a sometimes deadly disease carried by mosquitoes that infects about 100 million people a year in the tropics and sub-tropics.
The award was made in July, the university said.
Dr. Rothman won a comparable $11 million grant from NIH in 2008 while at UMass, according to URI.
His work includes lab research at The Institute for Immunology and Informatics, field studies in Thailand and the Philippines, and collaborations with scientists at Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and other institutions.
Dengue fever has flu-like symptoms and is not usually fatal, but can be debilitating. The disease is known in the U.S. primarily from travelers to the tropics who are bitten by disease-carrying mosquitoes.
Dr. Rothman will formally announce the award at a briefing Monday, Aug. 5 at 10 a.m. on the third floor of the institute at the URI Providence campus, 80 Washington St., Providence.
In 2011, Dr. Rothman described himself as an immunologist who facilitates vaccine development, according to the release.

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