Research Wire: November 2015


11.25.15
The Institute for Public Health has awarded Public Health-Cubed (PH3) grants of $15,000 to eight projects this fall. PH3 is a rapid seed-funding mechanism to support cross-disciplinary projects from the institute’s faculty scholars. For more details, visit the Institute for Public Health site.


11.19.15

Robert Blankenship, PhD, the Lucille P. Markey Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences in biology, has received $45,000 of a four-year grant totaling $180,000 from the Binational Science Foundation. Blankenship joins Noam Adir, a professor at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in research titled “Exploring and Utilizing the Remarkable Energy Transfer Characteristics of the Phycobilisome.”


11.19.15
Katharina Lodders, PhD, and Bruce Fegley, PhD, both professors of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, received a three-year, $503,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for research titled “Abundance of the Elements and Stellar Chemistry.”


11.18.15
D.C. Rao, PhD, director of the Division of Biostatistics at the School of Medicine, professor of biostatistics, and of biostatistics in genetics and in psychiatry, has received a $3.59 million supplement from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health(NIH) for research titled “Rare Variants for Hypertension in Taiwan Chinese.”


11.18.15

Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, the Niess-Gain Professor of Surgery at the School of Medicine, chief of the Division of Public Health Sciences and associate director of prevention and control at Siteman Cancer Center, andAimee James, PhD, associate professor of surgery, have received a three-year, $492,900 grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to collaborate with the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and its Simmon Cancer Institute, in conjunction with Washington University School of Medicine and Siteman Cancer Center, to address the needs of rural, underserved populations experiencing cancer disparities in southern Illinois. The grant is titled “Addressing Rural Cancer Disparities: A SCC-SIUSM Partnership.”

Additionally, Colditz has received a five-year, $1.55 million grant from the National Cancer Institute of NIH for work titled “Postdoctoral Training in Cancer Prevention and Control.”


11.16.15
The School of Medicine’s William Gillanders, MD, professor of surgery and vice chair for research in the Department of Surgery; Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, the Niess-Gain Professor of Surgery, chief of the Division of Public Health Sciences and associate director of prevention and control at Siteman Cancer Center; and Timothy Eberlein, MD, the Bixby Professor of Surgery, head of the Department of Surgery, director of the Siteman Cancer Center, and the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor, together have received a five-year, $2.75 million grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled “Surgical Oncology Basic Science and Translational Research Training Program.”


11.16.15
Baranidharan Raman, PhD, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, is looking to nature for clues about the sense of smell. Raman has been awarded a five-year, $600,000 Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER) from the National Science Foundation to understand information-processing principles in the biological sense of smell, or olfaction, and to develop bio-inspired signal processing algorithms for artificial olfaction. His project is titled “Neural Dynamics, Olfactory Coding and Behavior.” For more details, visit the engineering site.


11.12.15
Raj Jain, PhD, professor of computer science and engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has received $220,000 of a two-year grant from the National Science Foundation for research titled “CICI: Secure Data Architecture: Collaborative Research: Assured Mission Delivery Network Framework for Secure Scientific Collaboration.”


11.12.15

Yehuda Ben-Shahar, PhD, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, has received additional funding of $93,999 for a grant totaling $563,999 from the National Science Foundation for research entitled “ICOB: miRNAs and the Social Regulation of Behavioral Plasticity.”


11.9.15
Marco Colonna, MD, the Robert Rock Belliveau, MD, Professor of Pathology and of medicine at the School of Medicine, has received a four-year, $1.37 million grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health(NIH) for research titled “CRTAM-CADM1 Interaction in the Biology of Gut Lymphocytes”; a nine-month, $103,776 grant from the NIH for research titled “Administrative Supplement to: The Role of NK-22 Cells in Anti-HIV-1 Mucosal Immunity”; a one-year, $100,000 grant from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation for research titled “Novel Adhesive Interactions Modulate T Cell Responses in IBD”; a one-year, $100,000 grant from theCure Alzheimer’s Fund for research titled “The Role of TREML2 in Alzheimer’s Disease”; and a one-year, $50,000 grant from the NIH for research as part of the NIH AIDS Reagent Program for work titled “ILC Reagents for NIH AIDS Reagent Program.”

Colonna and Eugene Oltz, PhD, professor of pathology and immunology, together received a two-year, $419,375 grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the NIH for research titled “Chromatin-Based Discovery of ILC Gene Regulatory Circuits.”


11.9.15
Gautam Dantas, PhD, associate professor of pathology and immunology in the School of Medicine, of biomedical engineering and of molecular microbiology, and Marcus Foston, PhD, and Tae Seok Moon, PhD, assistant professors of energy, environmental and chemical engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, have received a three-year, $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy for research titled “Systems Biology of Rhodococcus Opacus to Enable Production of Fuels and Chemicals from Lignocellulose.”

Dantas also has received a one-year, $150,000 breakthrough award from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation for research titled “Synthetic Engineering of Enhanced Fitness and Adhesion Properties in Probiotics for the Treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease”; was named the 57th Mallinckrodt Scholar and received a four-year, $400,000 grant from the Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation for research titled “Quantitative Modeling of Antibiotic Resistance Gene Transmission Between Human and Environmental Microbiota”; received a one-year, $152,697 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled “Impact of Fecal Transplantation on Resistant Organism Carriage and the Resistome”; and received a one-year, $60,000 grant fromThe Foundation for Barnes-Jewish Hospital for research titled “Rabid and Accurate Sequencing-Based Diagnostics for Urinary Tract Infection.”


11.6.15
Gary J. Patti, PhD, associate professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, has received $199,013 of a three-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s National Cancer Institute for research entitled “Cell-Specific Isotope Labeling to Track Intercellular Metabolite Exchange in Cancer.”


11.6.15
Robert G. Kranz, PhD, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, has received $338,675 in continuing funding as part of a 25-year grant, through August 2019, from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences for research titled “Cytochrome c Biogenesis.”


11.4.15
Lori Markson, PhD, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences, will pursue research on the development of optimism in children as one of 18 projects funded recently under a national research program sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation. Markson and postdoctoral researcher Laura Hennefield will explore how optimism develops in children, including a theory that suggests optimism emerges in early childhood and its development is influenced by early experiences, especially negative life events.


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