by Elizabeth Boyle
Five OU-COMers recently received more than $1 million in funding
from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and American Heart
Association (AHA) for a variety of research projects, including
one that will help scientists understand the evolution of
dinosaurs and another that might help children in Kenya orphaned
by HIV/AIDS.
“Research is certainly one of our major thrusts in the college,
and we’re making a particular effort to increase federal
funding,” says Jack Blazyk, Ph.D., associate dean for
research and grants.
The five new grants brought in $1,110,476 in external funding to
the college in just the past month, which makes Blazyk
optimistic about the future.
“These grants will enable our faculty to do high-level research,
and they will enhance the stature of the medical school and the
university. We hope that this is the start of something big,” he
says.
Audrone Biknevicius, Ph.D.,
an associate professor of anatomy in the Department of
Biomedical Sciences, will travel to Australia to conduct much of
her NSF-funded research. Biknevicius, the co-principal
investigator in this study, and Stephen Reilly, Ph.D., the principal
investigator and an associate professor of biological sciences,
received a $363,243, three-year grant to research the locomotor
evolution of mammals. The team will examine marsupials, such as
opossums, and primitive placental animals, such as hedgehogs and
rats, Biknevicius says. One feature that distinguishes these two
groups of animals is that most marsupials have epipubic bones, a
pair of bones projecting into the abdominal wall from the
underside of the pelvis. Reilly has hypothesized that the
epipubic bones constrain the way animals can move. The
researchers hope to learn whether the absence of the bones was
an evolutionary advantage, which may explain why placental
mammals are more abundant than marsupial mammals.
Susan Williams, Ph.D.,
currently a gross anatomy instructor in the Department of
Biomedical Sciences, received two NSF grants. She’ll use a
$181,277, three-year grant to study how feeding styles change as
animals grow, and how that relates to the growth and function of
the muscles and bones in the face. She will study goats and
alpacas, supplied by Ohio State University’s veterinary school,
because they differ markedly in the structure of their jaws and
yet are more or less similar in how they feed and what they eat,
she explained. These animals also typically engage in tens of
thousands of chew per day soon after weaning, which may impact
how their facial muscles and bones develop.
Williams, who will start a tenure-track position as assistant
professor of biomedical sciences on July 1, also received a
$8,964, one-year grant for a pilot study in which she and her
colleagues will develop a new system for researching how jaw
muscles perform during normal feeding in the wild. The
development of this system will be an important addition to the
tools used by functional morphologists, because it will allow
researchers to investigate animals in their natural environments
rather than in controlled laboratory settings, she explained.
With co-principal investigators Ken Glander of Duke University
and Chris Vinyard of Northeast Ohio Universities College of
Medicine, Williams will examine howler monkeys, but eventually
hopes to expand this project to include other animals as well.
Gillian Ice, Ph.D., M.P.H.,
an assistant professor of biological anthropology and
gerontology in the Department of Social Medicine, received a
$265,000, three-year NSF grant to study the impact of caregiving
and gender on the nutritional status of Luo elders in Kenya. The
high mortality rate of adults with HIV/AIDS has produced 11
million orphans, and care of them has been left largely to the
elderly, according to Ice. In a previous study, Ice learned that
female caregivers were more likely to be undernourished than
female non-caregivers, but male caregivers were better nourished
than male non-caregivers. Her new study will look at what might
drive those gender differences and the impact of caregiving so
that ultimately, authorities can develop interventions to enable
grandparents to care for orphaned grandchildren.
Yang Li, Ph.D.,
an assistant professor of neuroscience in the Department of
Biomedical Sciences, says he hopes his research will help with
the development of treatment for ischemic stroke, the third
leading cause of death in the United States. Li received a
$121,000, two-year grant from the AHA, Ohio Valley Affiliate, to
study the role of zinc in ischemic stroke, which occurs when
blood from the heart and lungs can’t reach the brain due to a
blocked artery. After as little as three minutes of blood loss
to the brain, brain function can be lost. Li and his lab
assistant, doctoral student Christian Stork, want to
determine whether calcium overload in ischemia is actually zinc
overload.
Lawrence Witmer, Ph.D.,
an associate professor of anatomy in the Department of
Biomedical Sciences, received a
$171,262,
three-year grant from NSF. See the story on Witmer’s research
and grant here.
- 30 -
News for
the week of June 13 – June 18
