November 04, 2004

Bowling Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University's Biotechnology Center will use $2 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health to expand biomedical research and provide additional research opportunities for students and faculty.

Five WKU faculty members -- Cheryl Davis, Joseph Bilotta, Rodney King, Jeffrey Marcus and Nancy Rice -- were recently awarded the funds to be spent over five years from the NIH's National Center for Research Resources.

The goal of the grant, "KY-IdeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence," is "to expand biomedical research opportunities for talented scientists and students across the Commonwealth of Kentucky, particularly in the areas of genomics, proteomics, bioinformatics and neuroscience," said Davis, a biology professor.

Projects to be funded by this grant include Bilotta's project on comparing the processes of neural development and regeneration in zebrafish; King's work on RNA-based mechanisms of transcription elongation control; Marcus' research on a butterfly transposon mutagenesis screen for the study of wingless signal; and Rice's project on mechanisms of transcriptional coordination among phosphorylase kinase genes.

As the lead faculty member, Davis will be coordinating and providing administrative support.

By expanding biomedical research capacity, WKU researchers will become more competitive in obtaining funding from the NIH and other agencies, Davis said. The funding also will allow WKU to add a faculty position in neuroscience, she said.

The Biotechnology Center will be moving into the Complex for Engineering and Biological Sciences, a new research and learning facility on Western's campus.

"Students will have increased opportunities to participate in biomedical research under the supervision of faculty investigators," Davis said. "And we hope that more students will be attracted to careers in biomedical disciplines."

The Ky-IDeA network is a collaboration of six universities (University of Louisville, University of Kentucky, Western Kentucky University, Northern Kentucky University, Morehead State University and Eastern Kentucky University). The grant is administered by the University of Louisville with U of L's Dr. Nigel Cooper as the primary investigator.

For more information, contact Cheryl Davis at (270) 745-6524. More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you'd like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu.

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