Seven colleges in the United States have joined together to form the Southeastern Center for Emerging Biologic Threats. The center's objective is to come up with new ways of detecting, fighting, and preventing new diseases, be they naturally occurring or the result of bioterrorism, said the center's senior adviser, Dr. Jeffrey Koplan, a former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and now vice president for academic health affairs at Emory University. The seven founding members of the new center are Emory, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Medical College of Georgia, Morehouse School of Medicine, the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, and the University of Mississippi Medical Center.