{"id":6686,"date":"2009-11-02T07:05:54","date_gmt":"2009-11-02T11:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=6686"},"modified":"2011-05-31T12:40:12","modified_gmt":"2011-05-31T16:40:12","slug":"federal-stimulus-funds-spur-uconn-science-and-research-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2009\/11\/federal-stimulus-funds-spur-uconn-science-and-research-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal Stimulus Funds Spur UConn Science and Research Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"<p>Diane<\/a>
Diane Lillo-Martin, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Linguistics, has received two NIH grants as part of the federal stimulus funding. Photo by Daniel Buttrey<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

University of Connecticut researchers have secured more than $33 million in federal stimulus funds through competitive grants awarded by federal agencies, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act<\/a> (ARRA) enacted by Congress earlier this year.<\/p>\n

To date, UConn investigators at Storrs have been awarded $14 million in ARRA grants for 43 projects<\/a>, while at the UConn Health Center in Farmington, 32 projects have been awarded $19 million<\/a>. The funding will support a wide variety of ongoing and new research.<\/p>\n

Funded projects include a $3.6 million grant to study biodefense responses to microbial pathogens, led by Health Center immunologist\u00a0<\/em>Leo Lefrancois; $800,000 for a study of the genomic conflict in Poeciliid fishes by biologist Michael O\u2019Neil; and $400,000 for an investigation into the formation and applications of ultracold molecules by physicist William Stwalley.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe innovation in our laboratories will help drive the future economy of the State of Connecticut,\u201d says Suman Singha, vice president for research and graduate education. \u201cIt will also prepare the graduate and undergraduate students who will become our next generation of scientists, engineers, healthcare professionals, and teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The flow of stimulus money may accelerate, as federal agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) complete the process of reviewing thousands of proposals, notes Michael Crouch, executive director of the Office for Sponsored Programs and assistant vice provost for research.<\/p>\n

In all, UConn faculty from Storrs and the Health Center submitted more than 370 grant proposals by the Sept. 30 deadline, totaling more than $227 million in requested funding from the federal stimulus package, Crouch says. Even with 75 UConn research projects allotted federal funding so far, there may still be additional research awards to be announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe funding is slowly beginning to arrive,” says Crouch, whose office is responsible for processing grant proposals and managing awards for Storrs. \u201cOur trail of funded projects should continue through FY 2010, as we get further into the awarding cycle.\u201d<\/p>\n

About two-thirds of the new money coming to UConn is from the NIH for biomedical research, and most of the rest is through the NSF.<\/p>\n

“These new grants allow investigators to grow their programs and become highly competitive for other research awards,\u201d Crouch adds. \u201cThe process is highly competitive and the UConn faculty has done very well.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, three grants totaling nearly $3 million awarded to the Health Center are \u201cChallenge Grants,\u201d a new NIH initiative<\/a> to jumpstart specific biomedical and behavioral health research. The awards will pay for researchers\u2019 salaries, supplies, and equipment for three ongoing Health Center research projects. These projects include: more than $983,000 for a novel method that uses a molecular diagnostic approach to classify lung cancers and provide useful information to guide treatment, led by geneticist\u00a0Bruce Mayer; $1 million for a study of a bleeding disorder caused by problems in several molecules on platelets, by immunologist Dr. Zihai Li; <\/em>and $968,000 for a two-year trial to evaluate the feasibility of screening and treating tobacco and drug dependent patients in dental settings, led by Thomas Babor, head of the department of community medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were more than 20,000 applicants for the Challenge Grants but only 1 percent was funded,\u201d notes\u00a0Marc Lalande, chair of the department of genetics and developmental biology and the Health Center\u2019s senior associate dean for research planning and coordination. \u201cTo have one grant is significant, but to have been awarded three shows that our researchers are competitive with the very best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other funded projects at the Health Center include two \u201cequally competitive and highly sought after\u201d grants designed to recruit new faculty, says Jeff Small, associate vice president of the Office of Research Administration and Finance at the Health Center.<\/p>\n

One, a $765,000 grant for <\/em>Sandra Weller, chair of the molecular, microbial, and structural biology department, will further Health Center efforts to recruit world class researchers in structural biology while fostering collaborative research within UConn, Small says. The other, for <\/em>Victor Hesselbrock, scientific director of the Alcohol Research Center, will provide $900,000 for a new faculty member, who, in collaboration with existing Alcohol Research Center investigators and researchers from other branches of UConn with related interests, should move quickly to develop his or her own interdisciplinary independent research program.<\/p>\n

The stimulus funds represent a welcome boost for researchers, as budgets at federal agencies such as NIH have remained flat for several years, says Small. The two recruitment grants, he adds, \u201callow us to invest in infrastructure, which in higher education means hiring new professors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The largest ARRA funding awarded to Storrs-based researchers to date are two NIH grants totaling $1.9 million, to linguistics professor Diane Lillo-Martin. One award will be used in support of her research on how deaf children and hearing children in deaf families become bilingual in both sign and spoken language. The other award will be used to hire two new faculty members, with two full-time technicians, and laboratory startup funds.<\/p>\n

The new faculty will have joint appointments in psychology, communications sciences, and linguistics, and thus comply with an ARRA goal to promote \u201cinterdisciplinary and collaborative research,\u201d says William Snyder, head of the linguistics department in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely exciting to have Dr. Lillo-Martin\u2019s grant reach out to the rest of the cognitive science community and bring about a whole new level of interaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another NSF-funded project at Storrs includes $900,000 to increase scholarships in the Neag School of Education\u2019s Teachers for Tomorrow program, for improving teacher preparation in math and science \u2013content areas where there is a critical shortage in the state and in the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Teacher Certification Program for College Graduates<\/a> program was a natural fit for this grant,\u201d says Thomas DeFranco, dean of the Neag School, who is credited with co-developing the innovative program with math department colleague Charles Vinsonhaler. \u201cThis award validates the notion that we can collaborate with colleagues across campus to meet the challenges involved in the preparation of mathematics and science teachers in Connecticut.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, among the 22 research grants supported by the nearly $9 million the NSF awarded to Storrs-based investigators, are four CAREER grants \u2013 each totaling $400,000 or more \u2013 designed to promote the early career development of faculty researchers. The recipients are Jos\u00e9 Gasc\u00f3n and Nicholas Leadbeater<\/a> in the Department of Chemistry, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Yunsi Fei in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Shiva Kotha<\/a> in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn researchers have secured more than $33 million in federal stimulus funds through competitive grants awarded by federal agencies, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[46],"class_list":["post-6686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 15:02:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6686"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37153,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6686\/revisions\/37153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6686"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=6686"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}