Wednesday, February 27, 2002

WRITER: Lauren Stanchek, (706) 583-0599, rcomm@ovpr.uga.edu
CONTACT: Daniel Colley, (706) 542-4112, dcolley@uga.edu

COLLEY NAMED DIRECTOR OF DISEASE STUDY CENTER AT UGA

ATHENS, Ga. — The University of Georgia’s Center for Tropical and Emerging Global Diseases recently named Daniel Colley as its new director. Colley, the former director of the division of parasitic diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a 30-year veteran of immunology research on tropical diseases.

He succeeds the center’s founding director, Rick Tarleton, who helped establish the center three years ago to support research, service and educational initiatives associated with tropical and emerging diseases. Tarleton said that he was eager to be able to spend more time on research and teaching.

"I always intended to remain in the directorship only long enough to get the CTEGD established and when the opportunity presented itself to recruit someone with [Colley’s] credentials, it was the perfect time to step aside," Tarleton said.

"UGA is fortunate to attract a leading scientist from the CDC with a background in both microbiology and public health. We look forward to working with Dr. Colley," said Harry Dailey, director of UGA’s Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute.

As the new director, Colley said that nine years at the CDC and 22 years at the Vanderbilt Medical School and Veterans Affairs Medical Center have prepared him both administratively and scientifically for his new position.

At the CDC, Colley gained first-hand experience on a variety of parasitic diseases that affect people, both in the United States and abroad.

"What I really wanted to do was get back into academia, get back to working with students, get back to what I had done before, but now do it with the perspective that I brought from having worked in public health," Colley said.

Colley’s own work on schistosomiasis, a disease caused by a parasitic worm, involves cooperation with occupationally exposed people in Kenya. There the disease is a serious public health concern. His current studies focus on determining how resistance to re-infection develops and if a relationship exists between schistosomiasis and the contraction of HIV, as well as the progression of HIV to AIDS.

Treating schistosomiasis "could be part of a total public health package that also could protect a person from HIV if we found out that [the strategy] was feasible," he said.

Colley’s research also reflects his vision for the future direction of the CTEGD.

"Infectious diseases will not go away and tropical diseases exert strong negative influences on global development," Colley said. "Public health officials in the United States will need to know more and more about international health. And I think the center can be that focus at UGA."

The center’s international focus could benefit students as well as researchers, said Colley, who emphasizes the need for student training grants and overseas study because "international experience early in one’s career ‘sets the hook’ and people often then stay involved, or at least interested, in international research and events. Overseas exposure while a student is a wonderful way to gain a different perspective on yourself and the world around you."

Colley also plans to explore new connections with the CDC that will create additional research and outreach opportunities for the center both nationally and internationally.

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