The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has won a $10 million award from the National Institutes of Health to establish the Nebraska Center for Redox Biology. The center will be a collaborative research enterprise of UNL and UNMC’s Eppley Cancer Center.
“This unprecedented success in winning competitive federal grants demonstrates the benefits of increased research collaborations, particularly with UNMC,” said Harvey Perlman, UNL chancellor. “One key to winning this particular grant was the existence of dynamic faculty leadership who aggressively pursued this grant and who have sterling reputations as first-rate scientists.”
Leading the way
Ruma Banerjee, Willa Cather Professor and Professor of Biochemistry in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at UNL, was awarded the grant through a national, peer-reviewed NIH grant competition to establish Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence. Banerjee will direct the center.
The center’s research will look at how cells maintain a reduction-oxidation balance, a process called redox homeostasis, and study the link between redox homeostasis and complex diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease and cataracts. The studies also will advance understanding of redox regulation, which is important in cellular aging and controlled cell death.
The NIH Center of Biomedical Research Excellence grants are aimed at increasing research capacity at the recipient institutions. The Nebraska Center for Redox Biology will use the $10 million, awarded over five years, to support research projects and key technical facilities needed by the center’s researchers, and recruit new scientists and technicians. The center’s administrative offices will be housed at UNL but affiliated researchers will work on both campuses.
“There will be several pilot projects that will open the center to the entire UNL-UNMC scientific community with an interest in this area of research,” Banerjee said.
Participating faculty at UNMC, UNL
Faculty participating in the grant are Ercole Cavalieri and Dhruba Chakravarti from UNMC; and Han Asard, Joe Barycki, Vadim Gladyshev, Marjorie Lou, Stephen Ragsdale, Gautam Sarath and Steve Scott from UNL. Departments involved in the grant include biochemistry, chemistry, veterinary and biomedical sciences and computer science and engineering at UNL and the Eppley Cancer Center at UNMC. The grant provides support for eight postdoctoral associates, four graduate students, and three technicians.
“This is very significant,” Dr. Cavalieri said. “The ultimate goal of our project is to prevent the initiation of diseases.”
Faculty recruitment, mentoring
Faculty recruitment is a critical component of the center proposal. The grant funds initial salary and start-up costs for five new researchers, four at UNL and one at UNMC. The grant also will support key core facilities, an annual minisymposium and a seminar series.
A key feature of the grant pairs five senior faculty with junior faculty, helping them establish their research careers and mentoring them toward winning their own single-investigator grants, Banerjee said. “As they become successful, the projects will turn over to new faculty members recruited to the center,” she said. “In the end, we will have at least 15 faculty members in the center.”
Advisory board
The center will have an external advisory board composed of eight eminent scientists, five of whom are members of the National Academy of Sciences.
Officials said money from the recently approved Nebraska Tobacco Settlement Biomedical Research Development Fund was instrumental in building research infrastructure, such as equipment, and recruiting a key new hire that helped compose the team of scientists at the new center. The grant is the second largest NIH competitive award ever received by UNL.