3:45 p.m., Jan. 31, 2003--The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $9.7 million grant to the University of Delaware to fund multidisciplinary research on the hierarchy of macromolecular organization, a field that is important in the design of pharmaceuticals and biomaterials.
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| Researchers participating in the grant through UD’s Center of Biomedical Research Excellence program are (from left): Kristi Kiick, assistant professor of materials science and engineering; Cliff Robinson, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry; Neal Zondlo, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry; Darrin Pochan, assistant professor of materials science and engineering; Joe Fox, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry; Joel Schneider, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry; and Mahendra Jain, professor of chemistry and biochemistry. |
The grant will fund seven assistant professors in six independent research groups that share a common interest in design principles of macromolecules, according to Mahendra Jain, UD professor of chemistry and biochemistry and principal investigator for the grant.
This is the third significant grant in the last two years that NIH has awarded the University through its Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) program, and it is the largest of the three.
In 2002, NIH awarded a $6.4 million grant to the University’s Center for Biomedical Engineering Research to study osteoarthritis. That followed a 2001 grant of $6.8 million to establish a center of excellence in the area of structural and functional genomics.
All three grants are funded over five-year periods.
“The University of Delaware is working to build a presence in the biomedical area,” Jain said, adding the grant will do much to further that effort. “This funding promotes collaborative research across disciplines and serves as a nice complement to the work being done at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute. It gives us the freedom to build on strengths in the basic sciences and in the applied sciences.”
Joseph Fox, Clifford Robinson and Neal Zondlo, all assistant professors in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in the College of Arts and Science, are undertaking three projects through the grant.
The grant also will fund a project being undertaken by Kristi Kiick, assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering.
In addition, Jain said the COBRE grant will fund one joint research project, which involves Joel Schneider, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Darrin Pochan, assistant professor of materials science and engineering.
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| Mahendra Jain, UD professor of chemistry and biochemistry and principal investigator for the COBRE grant: “The University of Delaware is working to build a presence in the biomedical area. This funding promotes collaborative research across disciplines….” |
A sixth project is to be developed by the seventh professor, who is also funded by the grant, Jain said. The search for a new faculty member in chemistry and biochemistry is in progress.
Jain said the focus of the research at UD will be in identifying some of the rules of structure that apply for the functional forms of large molecules. With a solid history over nearly a century of research, scientists have a good understanding of such rules that apply to small molecules but have found it more difficult to uncover the rules of larger molecules.
“Some good basic science will come out of it and some good applied science will come out of it,” he said.
Jain said the COBRE grants are provided to young faculty members based on the “promise of their ideas,” adding, “The hope is that the funds will enable them to establish their research programs and eventually attract funding based on the work itself.”
“This is a win-win situation,” Jain said.
The grants are designed to provide for research supplies for five years. The funding also builds research infrastructure, including laboratory equipment, graduate assistants and postdoctoral associates.
Successful young researchers are likely to enhance an institution’s research capacity and sustain competitiveness for additional NIH grants, Jain said.
Supported by the National Center for Research Resources’ Division of Research Infrastructure, the awards provide five years of funding for multidisciplinary teams to develop faculty biomedical research expertise and competitiveness within a thematic research focus of their choosing.
Article by Neil Thomas
Photos by Kathy Flickinger and Kristen Lindner
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