NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $10 million grant to the University of Nevada, Reno and the University of Nevada School of Medicine for research into how cells communicate.
Using that information, the researchers hope that cells that cause human neurological and other diseases can be manipulated.
The funding will be used to establish an NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence, or COBRE, project focusing on the cell biology of signaling across membranes. The School of Medicine, the College of Science, and the department of biochemistry and molecular biology in the College of Agriculture, Biotechnology, and Natural Resources at the University of Nevada will create the COBRE project.
The project will last five years and includes funding for two core facilities in microscopy and tissue culture. According to Chris von Bartheld, program director for the project, as many as 30 people will be employed through the project. He is also a professor of physiology and cell biology and course director of medical neuroscience for the School of Medicine.
The co-director of the project is Grant Mastick, developmental neurobiologist and associate professor in biology.