Recovery Act funds are boosting university research

by David F. Salisbury and Bill Snyder

Since the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 was signed into law in February, it has given a significant boost to scientific and medical research at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

The Recovery Act committed $787 billion in federal funds to help stimulate the national economy. From this, 2.5 percent was earmarked for support of scientific and medical research.

“By including research support in its stimulus package, the federal government demonstrated its awareness that a healthy, growing economy relies on investment in research,” said Dennis Hall, vice provost for research and dean of the Graduate School.

“History is filled with examples of research that enabled the creation of whole new industries with hundreds of thousands of new jobs,” Hall said. “Fiber-optic communications emerged from research in such fields as glass and semiconductor materials, lasers, and probability theory, to name just a few. Computers, cell phones and the entire microelectronics industry were built on basic research in atomic physics, chemical bonds, quantum mechanics and more.

“Research is the highway we depend on to take us into a prosperous future,” he said. “We’d best keep it smooth, free of potholes and in good repair.”

As of Sept. 30, Vanderbilt researchers had received 182 grants totaling more than $79 million in first-year funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. About one-third of these grants support new projects, while two-thirds provide supplemental funding for existing grants. Most are supporting medically related projects in areas ranging from pharmacology to pediatrics to neuroscience to cancer biology, but a significant number of grants are going to projects in other fields, including chemistry, physics, astronomy, biological sciences and computer science.

Vanderbilt’s take represents 45 percent of the Recovery Act grants from NIH and NSF awarded to research universities, medical centers and companies in the state.

Vanderbilt research projects receiving Recovery Act funding include:

Correlating genetic information with drug responses
Dan Masys, chair of biomedical informatics, and Dan Roden, assistant vice chancellor for personalized medicine at VUMC, have received a two-year, $6.4 million “Grand Opportunities” stimulus grant from the NIH to test a key aspect of personalized medicine. The goal is to determine whether responses to certain drugs detailed in medical records could have been predicted by variations in corresponding DNA samples stored in Vanderbilt’s massive DNA databank, BioVU. Six new jobs will be created as a result of the grant.

Finding ways to inhibit the deadly “triple-negative” breast cancer
Researchers at VUMC have received a two-year, $4.7 million “Grand Opportunities” stimulus grant from the NIH to launch a cancer drug discovery program. Lawrence Marnett, director of the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology, is the grant’s principal investigator. A joint effort of the VICB and the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, the new center initially will hone in on triple-negative breast cancer, a particularly deadly form of the disease. Ten new jobs will be created as a result of the grant.

A new instrument for analyzing protein structure and DNA damage
Vanderbilt researchers have received $3.9 million from the NSF to purchase a powerful analytical instrument that will greatly accelerate their studies of complex protein structures. The ultra-high field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer is a much more powerful version of instruments that have been used in the past. Charles Sanders, professor of biochemistry, is principal investigator and one of several faculty members who will use the new instrument.

Studying black holes and mentoring minorities and women in astronomy
Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy Kelly Holley-Bockelmann has received nearly $1.1 million from the NSF to study black holes like the ones discovered at the core of the Milky Way. The grant also will support the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master’s-to-Ph.D. Bridge Program, a partnership with historically black Fisk University designed to encourage underrepresented minorities and women to pursue careers in physics and other sciences. Holley-Bockelmann, who is an adjunct professor at Fisk, will hire two Bridge graduates to assist her. The grant provides “time release” for a Fisk instructor to finish up a doctoral degree.

Examining how genetics and environment contribute to complex diseases such as diabetes
Marylyn Ritchie, who directs the Computational Genomics Core at VUMC, has been awarded $922,959 from the National Library of Medicine to determine the connections between genetic and environmental factors that contribute to common, complex diseases such as diabetes. The stimulus funding has enabled Ritchie to accelerate her research with the help of the university’s supercomputer, and to nearly double her lab staff.

Researching the electrical side of the human heart
John Wikswo, the Gordon A. Cain University Professor at Vanderbilt, coordinates a 13-member research group that has received $566,000 from the NIH to study the relationship between electrical and metabolic effects that take place when the heart’s rhythm becomes disturbed or abnormal. This work is the continuation of research the group has done for the past 11 years that would have been terminated due to the NIH’s tight budget, were it not for the stimulus funding.

Unraveling neural circuitry involved in visual attention
Associate Professor of Psychology Anna Wang Roe has received $565,000 from the NIH to support studies of the organization of an area of the brain involved in visual attention and to investigate how the brain encodes tactile information. These studies will add to understanding of the neural circuitries underlying tactile behavior and attention, and will have clinical relevance for recovery of function from stroke and development of tactile prosthetics.

Understanding fragile X syndrome
Kendal Broadie, the Stevenson Professor of Neurobiology and professor of biological sciences and pharmacology, has been awarded $532,205 from the National Institute of Mental Health to continue his studies of fragile X syndrome, the most commonly inherited form of both mental retardation and autism spectrum disorders. Using a fruit fly model they developed, Broadie and his colleagues aim to improve understanding of the disorder and, potentially, help develop new ways to treat it.

Helping parents of developmentally disabled children manage stress
Parents of children with developmental disabilities can experience “remarkably high levels of stress, anxiety and depression,” according to Elisabeth Dykens, director of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. Dykens has received a two-year, nearly $500,000 “Challenge Grant” from the NIH to compare two stress-reduction methods.

Developing fluorescent nanocrystal tags in the study of brain functions
Professor of Chemistry Sandra Rosenthal leads an interdisciplinary team that has received $387,000 in funding from the NIH to develop a new generation of fluorescent nanocrystal tags. The tags will be used in the study of the basic dynamics of processes that play an essential role in brain functions, including mood, sleep, appetite and aggression. The grant supports two research assistant professors, two graduate students and one undergrad.

Probing the origins of volcanic super-eruptions
Vanderbilt geologists Calvin Miller, Guilherme Gualda and John Ayers have received a $347,500 Recovery Act grant from the NSF to study a volcanic super-eruption that buried much of Southeastern California and Northwestern Arizona about 18.5 million years ago. The researchers will be using a battery of scientific tests in an effort to identify the events that trigger these types of natural eruptions. The project will provide training for five graduate students and five undergraduates, a large proportion of which will be women and underrepresented minorities.

For more information, visit www.vanderbilt.edu/research/recovery.html.

Posted 11/01/09