The University of South Alabama and scientist Jonathan Rayner, Ph.D., have been designated as inaugural honorees of the Innovate Alabama Network — a new resource established to facilitate connections and foster innovation among communities, nonprofits, and higher education institutions throughout the state.

Rayner, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology at the Frederick P. Whiddon College of Medicine, has been granted a $125,000 award to support the development of the proposed South Alabama Biotechnology Research Center (SABRC).

“Mobile has the potential to serve as the biotechnology hub for the Alabama Gulf Coast,” Rayner said. “This award will go a long way in making sure that happens.”

Innovate Alabama is the first statewide public-private partnership in Alabama focused on entrepreneurship, technology, and innovation. Its mission is to help innovators establish roots in Alabama.

Aligned with USA's mission, the biotechnology research center will promote innovative technologies to enhance human health on the Gulf Coast and globally, according to Rayner.

Rayner noted that the center will also offer unique learning opportunities to further prepare the area's workforce with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to support translational research and product development. The center's primary objective is to establish USA as the hub for biotechnology research and development on the Gulf Coast. This will be achieved by officially providing contract research services in biomedical research to government and industry partners, in addition to academic collaborators.

Plans involve formally establishing the South Alabama Biotechnology Research Center (SABRC) using the university's existing facilities.

To distinguish the center from other contract research entities and solidify South Alabama and the region as an innovative biotechnology research center focused on arthropod-borne infectious diseases, researchers will investigate the utility of co-administering mosquito salivary gland components along with the challenge virus. This approach aims to reflect natural transmission and disease progression more accurately.

This research will enable other biotech programs and companies to leverage the foundational work and laboratories to grow biotech enterprises in the region. Rayner plans to use the Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) as the model virus system to demonstrate this innovative approach.

An emerging arboviral infectious disease, CHIKV has spread globally from Africa, causing significant outbreaks in tropical and subtropical regions, including the United States. Due to this, the virus has been designated a priority pathogen by the World Health Organization.

“Like other mosquito-borne infectious diseases, current animal models used to evaluate candidate vaccines and therapeutics ignore the immunomodulatory effects of mosquito salivary gland proteins and contributions to virus pathogenesis,” Rayner said.

That means existing models do not accurately reflect the natural course of human infection, according to Rayner. The studies proposed at USA are expected to demonstrate proof of concept for CHIKV and to also be applicable to other mosquito-borne infectious diseases of consequence to human health such as dengue and Zika virus.