University of Montana adds infectious disease doctorate program

With the global rise of infectious diseases, such as the West Nile virus and avian bird flu, an international call to understand the environmental factors has increased.

And the University of Montana is keeping up with the demand by adding a new doctorate program, the Montana Ecology of Infectious Disease.

UM established the program through a recent $3.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation http://www.matr.net/article-16746.html .

“It’s very timely, but we are not responding to any single event,” said Bill Holben, a UM professor of microbial ecology and one of the writers of the proposal for the grant. “We are interested in how plants and pathogens interact in a complex environment. The ecology of diseases is what we are after.”The grant is the culmination of nearly five years worth of fine-tuning a proposal from several UM professors. Their goal has been realized in the establishment of the infectious disease program, which will officially begin in the fall of 2006.

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