Tucson: UA Immunologist Receives Award

UA immunologist is given presidential award

By Tom Beal

ARIZONA DAILY STAR July 10, 2009

UA immunologist Felicia Goodrum has received a Presi­dential Early Career Award for her research into a virus that most of us have but few of us could name.

Our bodies’ immune systems can fend off Cytomegalovirus, or CMV, for years until immu­nity is compromised by AIDS, treatments for diseases or preparation for transplants.

Then the virus gets ugly and often deadly.

Goodrum developed her in­terest in fighting the virus as a Leukemia and Lymphoma So­ciety Fellow at Princeton Uni­versity.

Goodrum, 39, has been re­searching a better treatment for the virus for the last three years in her lab at the University of Ari­z­ona’s Bio5 Research Institute.

She is an assistant professor in the Department of Immuno­biology at the UA College of Medicine with a joint appoint­ment in molecular and cellular biology.

Thursday she was named one of 100 scientists and engi­neers recognized by the White House and given five-year grants by various federal agen­cies. The White House release announcing the award did not give an award amount.

Goodrum was nominated for the award by the National In­stitute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, which also helps fund her research.

She will receive the award at the White House this fall.

Goodrum said CMV is in about 60 percent of the popu­­lation, with a higher incidence in crowded cities.

There is a treatment for it, of­ten used pre-emptively before transplants, but it is toxic and does not affect cells that are not actively infected, she said.

Her research aims to identify protein targets and develop a treatment for them.

“There can be some pretty high mortality associated with the virus in leukemia, lym­phoma, solid organ transplants even chemotherapy patients and AIDS patients. It can infect literally every cell in the body,” she said.

It is also, she said, 'the lead­ing cause of infectious-dis­ease- related birth defects.”

Goodrum said research alone does not earn you a Presidential Early Career Award.

“Of course they want cut­ting- edge, high-level science,” she said, but community out­reach is also valued.