Grant Awards

DECEMBER 2007

William Fagan, Biology, received a $225,000 multi-year grant from Princeton University for his project on the “Ecology of Dentritic Landscapes”  which focuses on the ways in which the branching geometry of river networks (as opposed to ‘2-D’ planar landscapes) influences population dynamics, species interactions, and biogeography.

Galen Dively, Entomology, received three grants recently: A cooperative agreement with USDA/BARC for $50,000 to research the effects of insecticides on honey bees as a possible causal factor for Colony Collapse Disorder; a grant for $70,000 from Syngenta Seeds to conduct an ecological risk assessment of the possible non-target effects of a new genetically modified corn resistant to rootworms; and a IR-4/EPA grant for $18,200 to demonstrate the effectiveness of Bt sweet corn.

NOVEMBER 2007

Sam Joseph, Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics and colleagues from the University of Maryland School of Public Health, College Park and Johns Hopkins University received a $20,000 grant from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future to explore temporal changes in antibiotic resistance of Salmonella, Campylobacter and Enterococcus as conventional poultry farms transition to organic farms.

June Kwak, Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, was awarded a $349,999 grant from the USDA-CSREES for his project on “Cellular mechanisms for rapid adjustment of ABA levels and its application to develop drought-tolerant crops."   The goal of the research is to provide insights into abscisic acid (ABA)-regulated cellular processes by identifying novel molecular components in ABA homeostasis and signaling.  Potential outcomes for the research include development of crops with improved water stress tolerance since ABA plays a central role in the protection of plants from various environmental stresses. 

Sandra Sardanelli, Entomology, received funding from the USDA-CSREES for support of the Maryland Cooperative Extension Plant Diagnostic Laboratory.  Under Ms. Sardanelli, the Maryland Component of the Diagnostic Network joined in a cooperative effort among states with significant legume crop acreage to prepare the laboratory for rigorous scouting and assay programs for Phakopsora pachyrhizae (cause of soybean rust), soybean aphid, and a wide array of legume viruses. The funding will ensure that the laboratory can be adequately staffed and have needed diagnostic supplies, to meet the obligation of tracking the disease in Maryland.

OCTOBER 2007

Volker Briken, Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, received a one-year grant from NIH (NIAID) for his project “Mechanism of Host Cell Apoptosis Inhibition by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.” The total direct cost of the grant is $250,000 plus indirect $125,000. Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) infections, claims the lives of 2-3 million people annually. The importance of the development of more efficient drugs and vaccines is reinforced by: the emergence of multi-drug resistant and extreme-drug resistant Mtb strains and secondly, the deadly synergism between the HIV/AIDS epidemic and TB due to reactivation of persisting bacteria. This research seeks to test the hypothesis that the capacity of Mtb to inhibit infection-induced apoptosis of macrophages is a major pathway of the bacteria to avoid the host’s innate and adaptive immune response.

Briken’s lab also received a two-year postdoctoral fellowship award of the “Heiser Program in Leprosy and Tuberculosis of The New York Community Trust.” The award, with a total of $80, 000, was awarded to future postdoc Hana Abdalla who is currently at the Division of Medical Microbiology, Linkoping University, Sweden. The title of the research project for which the grand was awarded is: “Comparative analysis of the host innate and acquired immune response to M.tuberculosis and an apoptosis-inducing mutant.”

Nicole LaRonde-LeBlanc, Chemistry and Biochemistry, received a grant from the National Cancer Institute for her work “Structural and Functional Studies of the Human RIO Kinases.” The three-year grant of $163,480, will allow LaRonde-LeBlanc to study the mechanism of function of ribosome processing factors using X-ray crystallography to determine atomic resolution structures of macromolecules. These structures are then used as a guide to probe molecular function biochemically. The focus of this project is to determine the substrate specificity of two related atypical protein kinases involved in ribosome synthesis, Rio1 and Rio3, utilizing a combination of biochemical and structural approaches. The hope is that this work will be the basis for structure-based design of inhibitors of ribosome synthesis.

David Mosser, Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, received a $358,175 “Shared Instrumentation Grant” from NIH. The grant will allow the purchase of a fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS), which will be placed in the flow cytometry core facility in the new Bioscience Research Building. This instrument allows researchers to separate out a single homogenous cell population from a complex mixture of cells using fluorescent probes. It will be a great aid to the research programs of more than a dozen investigators on campus.

Kennedy Paynter, Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences, received a contract from the Department of Environment valued at $30,000 for his work on Oyster Restoration Effort Compilation and Analysis.

Robert Walker, Chemistry and Biochemistry, received a contract valued at $96,054 from the National Institute of Standards and Technology for his work on Time-Resolved Terahertz Studies of Conducting Molecular Thin Films and Organic Molecular Dynamics. The project represents a collaborative effort with scientists at NIST to develop and explore advanced ultrafast laser methodologies to directly obtain time-dependent information about molecular structure, reaction dynamics and complex biomolecular properties through their low frequency, far-infrared (Terahertz or THz) spectra.

SEPTEMBER 2007

Sang Bok Lee, Chemistry and Biochemistry, has received a new award from the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) for his project “Test structures for the characterization of semiconductor nanowires.” The grant runs through February 2010 with award for the first year of $136K. The goal of the project is to develop test structures and related measurement methodologies to enable advances in electrical metrology needed to speed technical advances in semiconductor nanowire devices for future nanoelectronic applications. The focus is on nanoelectronic test structures fabricated by using both top-down methods (etching to form lithographically defined semiconductor nanowires) and bottom-up methods (grown/self-assembled nanowires). These test structures and the related measurements probe many of main metrology and technology issues associated with the next generation ULSI transistors and sensors.

Catherine Fenselau, Chemistry and Biochemistry, was awarded a contract from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for her work “Rapid Chacterization of Microorganisms.” The award for the first year is $110K. Dr. Fenselau's lab will work on an inter-institutional, cross-disciplinary team seeking to improve the speed and reliability of the identification of airborne microorganisms by mass spectrometry-based sensors.

John Ondov, Chemistry and Biochemistry, received a new award from the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) for his project “Metrology Infrastructure for In Vitro and In Vivo Radiological Emergency Response.” The award for the first of three years is $57K. The goal of the project is to develop and utilize innovative approaches to calibrating and evaluating radiobioassay measurement methods. The missions of this project are to: 1) develop basic in vitro radiobioassay reference materials for the assessment of the quality of radioactivity measurements in the laboratory where the key target matrices are urine and feces, 2) conduct proficiency testing programs for occupational safety and emergency preparedness, 3) calibrate the response of field detectors, 4) develop the MCNP computational capabilities to intercompare the CT scans from the IAEA/DOELAP reference calibration phantoms, and intercompare IAEA/’DOELAP reference calibration phantoms of a variety of shapes and compositions.