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UI Lands $10.1 Million National Institutes of Health Grant To Continue Biomedical Research on Infectious Diseases
Oct. 6, 2005
MOSCOW, Idaho – A $10.1 million renewal grant from the National Institutes of Health will allow University of Idaho scientists to continue biomedical research focused on infectious diseases.
The five-year grant from the NIH Institutional Development Award program funds one of two UI Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence. This renewed center is devoted to the study of molecular and cellular basis of host-pathogen interactions.
“The University of Idaho is the state’s flagship research-extensive institution," said UI President Tim White. "We have made substantial investments to provide faculty support and purchase equipment to attract this grant. Receipt of this grant is a powerful return on our investment that meets our long-term strategic plan to promote science and technology in Idaho.
“Biomedical research at the university already has yielded significant new inventions and patents,” White added. “They in turn may yield new products to promote animal health and help the state’s biomedical and biotechnology industries, including agriculture. That fulfills another strategic goal: catalyzing entrepreneurial innovation.
”Another attribute of this award is that it will foster basic scientific research at UI to broaden understanding of a human virus that is the leading cause of viral birth defects each year," White added.
The renewal grant will allow the university to expand research programs and recruit top students and researchers, said Greg Bohach, Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station director at Moscow. He led the original team and will continue to direct the center.
The renewal grant also provides funds to support microscopy, cell separation and analysis and molecular biology research infrastructure throughout the UI Moscow campus, Bohach said.
“We were successful in meeting our initial goals to increase the competitiveness of the junior faculty on the team,” said Bohach, whose research has focused largely on the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, a major cause of diseases in humans and animals.
“Our new emphasis will be on expanding our expertise in viral, fungal and parasitic diseases, while maintaining the initial core of investigators focusing on bacterial diseases,” Bohach added.
A key goal of the grant will be to improve labs and equipment available to researchers and students, both graduate and undergraduate.
The funding will assist the university to attract top graduate students from around the country, said Bohach. Dozens of undergraduate students were hired to work in research labs during the first grant. That practice will continue, giving students valuable research experience, Bohach added.
The new grant will encourage further collaboration, said Judy Parrish, College of Science dean. “This grant links several colleges and departments across the university, enhancing our ability to work together to tackle some of the most difficult problems in science. By leveraging our own resources to gain this funding, we have significantly enhanced our ability to conduct scientific research.”
“Our research also provides the state with multiple benefits,” said John Hammel, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences dean. “The research funding contributes to the state's economy by targeting problems that directly affect human health and the Idaho agricultural industry. The students who work in laboratories funded by NIH provide the state with an educated workforce that will help build new businesses.”
The original center was established with a $9.6 million NIH grant in 2000 to scientists on the UI College of Agricultural and Life Sciences faculty and colleagues at the Boise Veterans Administration Medical Center.
The original research team focused on enhancing the university’s expertise in bacterial disease organisms such as staph, the deadly strain of the E. coli bacterium and the bacteria that cause gangrene.
UI scientists have compiled a notable track record in attracting NIH funding. In 1993, UI scientists received $1.1 million from the institutes. By 2003, funding jumped 10-fold to $10.7 million.
In 2001, a multidisciplinary team led by the UI College of Science received a $10.2 million NIH grant to study evolutionary processes. Directed by Larry Forney, head of the biological sciences department, the team included a computer science and microbiology faculty members.
The benefits have carried throughout the state. A $6 million NIH grant in 2001 to UI, Boise State University and Idaho State University established a statewide Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network. Last year, a $16 million NIH grant expanded the original network to 11 higher education and research centers statewide.
Since 2000, UI researchers have led projects that have attracted more than $60 million in NIH support.
The statewide Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, which is guided by a committee of scientists, legislators and businesspeople and led by UI chemist Jean’ne Shreeve, facilitated the development of the grants through the NIH Institutional Development Award program, Bohach said.
Like the first NIH grant, the renewal grant funds a research team from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences' department of microbiology, molecular biology and biochemistry and department of animal and veterinary sciences.
The new grant also links CALS with the College of Science by joint funding for a protein crystallographer, who will specialize in the rapid discovery of proteins’ three-dimensional structures. The physical structures of proteins are important in understanding all organisms, including those that cause disease.
The new research position will be shared by both colleges, underscoring the NIH funding’s value across the university, Bohach said.
The renewal of funding for infectious disease research will allow the university to help junior researchers develop competitive research programs. Their work will focus on the parasite that causes toxoplasmosis, staphylococcus diseases, human cytomegalovirus, bubonic plague and fungal infections.
The center’s research team will include, Gustavo Arrizabalaga, a molecular parasitologist; Mark McGuire, an animal scientist and lactation physiologist; Elizabeth A. Fortunato, a cellular virologist; Scott Kobayashi, a molecular immunologist; and Bruce Miller, a fungal developmental geneticist.
Contacts: Greg Bohach, UI Agricultural Experiment Station Director, (208) 885-7173, gbohach@uidaho.edu; or Bill Loftus, UI science writer, (208) 885-7694, bloftus@uidaho.edu
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