WVU Breaks $150 Million Mark in Funding
WVU established an all-time high in funding for research and sponsored programs this past year, receiving $150.6 million from federal, state, industry, and private sources—up from $140.3 million in fiscal year 2004.
The seven percent increase represents the highest amount of funding from external sources in the history of the University. Money received from federal agencies accounts for about 68 percent of the funding.
The total also represents an $86 million—or 134 percent—increase in funding levels since 1995, and the seventh consecutive year of research funding growth.
WVU Pumps $2 Billion Annually into State’s Coffers
WVU pumps $2 billion a year into West Virginia’s economy, increasing the state’s investment in the University tenfold.
Randy Childs, an economist with the College of Business and Economics’ Bureau of Business and Economic Research, said the University was responsible—either directly or indirectly—for creating 28,603 jobs in 2004.
“The results of this study show the return to the state is well proven, and further investments will only increase this direct benefit back to West Virginia,” WVU President David C. Hardesty Jr. said. “Furthermore, our mission of teaching, research, and service has, as its ultimate end, job placement and creation.”
Potential Breakthrough in Alzheimer’s Treatment
New research published in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that bryostatin may stimulate the production of proteins essential for long-term memory.
“It now appears that bryostatin promotes the synthesis of exactly those proteins necessary and sufficient for brain networks to consolidate memory,” said the study’s lead author, Daniel Alkon, scientific director of WVU’s Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI). “This could be a real breakthrough for Alzheimer’s patients—it’s like putting memory proteins in the brain’s bank for later use.”
Early Alzheimer’s patients typically cannot store new long-term memories. Bryostatin biochemically enhances precisely this storage of long-term memory.
Scientists at the institute, in collaboration with scientists at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, report in the study that bryostatin can promote the proteins required to construct permanent memory. It has long been known that protein synthesis is needed for storing long-term memories.
The latest research was conducted in the mollusk Hermissenda, a marine snail. By introducing bryostatin to the mollusk in the days leading up to a learning activity, a marked improvement was shown in long-term memory. The improvement is coordinated with a sharp increase in protein synthesis in the subjects.
Aging Research “For the Birds”
A group of animal scientists in WVU’s Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Consumer Sciences is looking at pentosidine as an indicator of just how long it has been since a bird hatched. Pentosidine is an end product of glycation, a process associated with aging in which proteins react with sugars.
“It’s notoriously difficult to determine a bird’s age,” said Hillar Klandorf, professor of animal physiology in the Davis College and one of the authors of the text Animal Physiology: From Genes to Organisms.
“After they reach adulthood, they go through very few identifiable physical changes,” Klandorf added. “The traditional method of determining the age of birds is through banding, and that’s very labor-intensive.”
Pentosidine is very stable, accumulating in body tissues over time. He said it is also easily measured in a laboratory setting.
“Accurate age information could aid species recovery programs and provide insights into longevity, which is currently understood almost entirely from banding programs and captive birds,” Klandorf said. “It could also provide insight into age-related population demographics such as the onset of sexual maturity and the effect of age on behavior and susceptibility to disease.”
Funding Package Finalized
A $24.4 million funding package that will allow WVU to complete a 12-year research expansion plan in as little as half that time has been finalized. The facilities will enable the University to add 600 new health sciences research positions over the next six to eight years.
“WVU is developing strong research capabilities in a number of focused areas of health and biosciences, including neurosciences, cancer, and heart disease,” said Robert M. D’Alessandri, WVU vice president for health sciences. “The funds provided by these agencies will allow the University to build infrastructure and speed the recruitment of top researchers.”
The funds will build new laboratories at the University’s Mary Babb Randolph Cancer Center and new neurosciences laboratories. It also will create research space in the new Health Sciences Library.
“With this up-front financing, we can build facilities that will be among the most advanced at any health sciences center or research institute in the country,” said Dr. D’Alessandri. “That will attract top researchers, and they will bring an influx of federal and private research funding to WVU.”
How Lower Temperatures Affect Plant Life
A WVU geneticist has received a three-year, $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Integrative Plant Biology Program to study the genetic material linked to the ability of plants to withstand cold.
Dale Karlson is an assistant professor of genetics and developmental biology in the WVU Davis College of Agriculture, Forestry, and Consumer Sciences.
He will focus his research on the cold-shock domain gene family and will assess its influence on adaptations plants make to low temperatures.
“Ultimate goals of low-temperature stress studies aim to identify varieties of plants with agricultural production value that could be cultivated in places that might have otherwise excellent growing conditions, but have a climate that’s too cold or a growing season that is too short,” Karlson said.
Forensic Studies Gets a Funding Boost
U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd announced that $4 million he added to federal appropriations legislation are on the way to Morgantown for WVU’s Forensic Science Initiative.
“WVU’s forensic science programs are leading the way in national forensic research, education, training, and academic curriculum development. The Forensic Science Initiative is answering the call for cutting-edge forensic technology and highly-trained forensic specialists. The University’s efforts are helping to convict criminals and make America safer,” Byrd said.
The initiative supports forensic science research and professional training, including WVU’s first-of-its-kind specialized undergraduate degree program; develops new methods for collecting and examining evidence; and provides resources to improve forensic science in crime labs across the nation.
WVU Authors in Journal of Neuroscience
Through the sea of helmets and jerseys, the quarterback spots his receiver downfield and lets loose with a pass. The receiver didn’t run where he was supposed to, but the quarterback’s pass landed right in his hands for a touchdown. How does the quarterback know where the receiver is going to be when he throws the ball?
Our brains read the movements of other people’s bodies and make judgments from those movements. Those same readings and judgments can be made from seeing just parts of the body as well. How? What parts of the brain are involved? These questions are the focus of research recently done at WVU. The results of this work are featured as the cover story in the September 28, 2005, issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. The article presents research identifying which areas of the brain are active when human body motion is observed. The authors, from the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center at WVU are: James C. Thompson, a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Advanced Imaging; Aina Puce, PhD, of the Center for Advanced Imaging; and Michele Clarke and Tennille Stewart, former undergraduate computer science and engineering students who were funded by the National Science Foundation’s Research Environments for Undergraduates Program.
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see how and what parts of the brain responded to watching an animated human figure move on a computer screen. The subjects watched movies of whole and fragmented walking figures and detected changes in the pattern of walking, while the fMRI identified the reactions of their brains.
“We want to understand how people with social communication disorders such as autism and schizophrenia interpret the actions of others,” said Dr. Puce. “We have started simply—by studying how the brain detects human motion. We are now beginning to work on how this information is interpreted.”
WVU CER Has New Focus
The WVU Center for Environmental Research (CER), with a new focus and approach, aims to coordinate environmental research activities at the University and to serve as a point of contact for citizens of the state who have environmental questions or problems.
Established through funding from the WVU Research Corporation in 2003, the Center has been under the leadership of Dr. Roger C. Viadero Jr. since May 2005.
One of the primary goals of the CER is to establish a collaborative interdisciplinary environment that will coordinate all environmental research being conducted at WVU. The CER strives to enhance research and provide direct support of scientific research, technology development and transfer, and economic development.
“Initially, the focus of our work will be in three major areas: environmental restoration and remediation; watershed functions and processes; and environmental policy, legal issues, and economics,” said Dr. Viadero.
Bridge Patents Book Published
The WVU Press has released a new title that contributor Dr. Larry Sypolt, of WVU’s Institute for the History of Technology and Industrial Archeology, calls “the largest and most comprehensive collection of official bridge-patent information ever published.”
American Bridge Patents: The First Century (1790-1890) attempts the monumental task of presenting a record of all patents issued for bridge building by the U.S. Patent Office during its first century of operation.
One of the major purposes of the book is to encourage historians and industrial preservationists to aid in researching and completing the records of all patents for bridges of the nineteenth century. Fires at the Patent Office destroyed and scattered many patents and records, and some may still be in relatively unknown or unused archives around the United States.
Over 800 patents are presented in this work as well as many original drawings done for the Patent Office by the designers of the bridges.