NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Four researchers at the University of Oklahoma have won a $9.7 million Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence grant from the National Institutes of Health to support the growth and competitiveness of the university's structural biology science programs, OU said on Wednesday.
The grant will fund research and career development of four junior faculty members and will bolster OU's infrastructure by creating statewide core facilities that provide access to shared instrumentation, staff support, and training. The university also will use the grant to promote structural biology through supporting core research facilities, symposia, workshops, and a seed program.
"This is the first NIH CoBRE grant awarded to a research group on OU's Norman campus and the fact that the focus of this grant is on structural biology is significant," Ann West, OU Professor and project director for the grant, said in a statement. "Structural biology lies at the intersection of many different areas of biological sciences and, thus, has the potential of impacting numerous biomedical fields."
The junior faculty members who won the CoBRE award include Assistant Professors Elizabeth Karr, Jana Shen, Blaine Mooers, and Augen Pioszak.
The university said the funding will "provide significant resources for investigators at OU and throughout the state to pursue structure-based biomedical studies" of macromolecules, in particular by providing funding to acquire expensive biological research instruments.