NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – The University of Arkansas has landed a $5.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to expand and fund new research projects in its Center for Protein Structure and Function, the University said yesterday.
The protein center conducts research into the structure and function of proteins that may be involved in, or could help lead to treatments for, cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, influenza, and other diseases and conditions.
The center is comprised of five core facilities that support this range of research efforts including a mass spectrometry facility; a large-scale protein production facility; a nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy facility; a chemical synthesis facility; and an X-ray crystallography facility.
The funding came from the National Center for Research Resources' Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence program.
The grant is funded by the Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence program of the National Center for Research Resources, a part of the National Institutes of Health.
One of the major aims behind expanding the facilities at Arkansas is to create an environment that researchers can use to expand their studies and to reel in more funding.
"These grants will allow researchers to get some experimental evidence for their ideas so that they can write a major grant proposal," Frank Millett, who directs the center and is a distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the school, said in a statement. "These facilities have helped everyone involved in biomedical research on campus become competitive in getting research grants."