Bowling Green, Ky. - Western Kentucky University hosted a statewide meeting of the Kentucky INBRE (IdeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence) program on Dec. 1 and 2.

Dr. Cheryl Davis of the Department of Biology serves as WKU’s lead faculty representative for the program. Biology faculty members Dr. Rodney King, Dr. Nancy Rice, Dr. Jeffrey Marcus and Dr. Michael Smith along with psychology faculty member Dr. Joseph Bilotta are research scientists for WKU in the program.

WKU researchers receive nearly $500,000 annually as participants in the Kentucky IdeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence.

Attending last week’s meeting were Dr. Nigel Cooper of the University of Louisville Health Sciences Center, the principal investigator of the statewide grant, and other members of the Administrative Advisory Board, External Advisory Committee and Steering Committee.

Representing the External Advisory Committee were Dr. David Landsman, chief of the Computational Biology Branch National Center for Biotechnology Information at the National Institutes of Health; Dr. Daniel Goldowitz, director of the UT Research Center of Excellence in Genomics and Bioinformatics University of Tennessee Health Science Center; Dr. Cynthia Gibas, Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina, Charlotte; and Dr. Irv Kornfield, School of Marine Sciences, University of Maine.

The meeting included a tour of the Visual Neuroscience Lab in the Department of Psychology and tours of the new Biotechnology Center and numerous research labs on the third floor of the Complex for Engineering and Biological Sciences.

Guests were welcomed at a reception at the new science building by Dr. Richard Bowker, head of WKU’s Biology Department, and Dr. Blaine Ferrell, dean of Ogden College of Science and Technology. Later in the evening, guests were welcomed by President Gary Ransdell.

The goal of the KY-INBRE is to build on the successes of the KBRIN (Kentucky Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network), its infrastructure and its network of biomedical researchers to increase Kentucky’s capacity for research. Other participating institutions include the University of Louisville, University of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, Northern Kentucky University and Morehead State University.

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.

For information, contact Cheryl Davis at (270) 745-6524.