NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Princeton University researchers will use around $1.8 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to support 'omics-focused studies of antibiotic resistance, cancer, and biological development.
Associate Professor Saeed Tavazoie won $391,000 from NIH to characterize the genetic basis of antibiotic resistance in E. coli bacteria. Tavazoie and his collaborators will explore the role each gene in the E. coli genome plays in its antibiotic resistance, which could lead to information used in developing new drugs and treatments.
Professor Mona Singh will use a $200,000 NIH grant to develop methods and software that can predict protein interactions and to create new analytical techniques to study how proteins interact in a given cell. The studies will focus specifically on zinc finger proteins, which are involved in a number of disease pathways including cancer.
Professor Laura Landweber received an $808,000 grant from NSF to fund studies of mechanisms that bypass traditional modes of genetic inheritance in a single-celled organism called Oxytricha. The aim is to understand an RNA-guided process involved in epigenetics and microbe evolution that could have implications in cancer.
Professor Elizabeth Gavis received a $458,000 NIH grant to fund her work on localizing messenger RNA. The research will involve using genome-wide screens to test whether numerous mRNAs are localized in different cell types in Drosophila. The research may help scientists to understand how localized mRNAs control cellular processes needed for growth and development, and how disruption of these processes could cause diseases.