EPI and ICBR announce $100,000 in seed funding awards

The Emerging Pathogens Institute and the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research heartily congratulate the five University of Florida research groups who have been awarded a total of $100,000 in seed funding for their outstanding proposals for the EPI-ICBR Innovative Projects Initiative. Each of the five $20,000 awards are funded equally by both organizations, and are to be applied toward purchasing services offered by ICBR.

Applications for awards were opened last March to qualified faculty who needed services offered by ICBR in order to obtain preliminary research on emerging or re-emerging pathogens necessary for larger grant applications. EPI is especially pleased that four UF colleges, plus a research center, are represented -- showcasing our institute’s ability to link many different scientific fields.

Principal investigators of the winning groups are:

• - Alfredo Bonilla: Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine; Topic: "Characterizing the Cellular Morphology of Genetic Mutants of Plasmodium using High-Pressure Cryofixation and Electron Tomography."
• - Robert Cook: Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health and Health Professions; Topic: "High throughput sequencing of microbial communities from fecal and vaginal samples in a study of bacterial vaginosis."
• - Paul Gulig: Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, College of Medicine; Topic: "Genomic Sequencing of Environmental Strains of Vibrio vulnificus."
• - Marco Neira: Whitney Laboratory of Marine BioScience; Topic: "Transcriptional effects of long-term bacterial challenges during larval development in mosquito vectors of human disease."
• - Marta Wayne: Department of Zoology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; Topic: "Topic: SOLiD sequencing estimate of within-host variation for an RNA virus."

Both EPI and ICBR respectfully thank the 16 research groups that submitted proposals. For more information on the Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology, please visit: www.biotech.ufl.edu. For future funding opportunities, please check EPI’s online funding opportunities.

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Writer: DeLene Beeland, tdb@epi.ufl.edu