Core facility helps Drs. Fox and Sarvetnick secure $3 million NIH grant















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Howard Fox, M.D., Ph.D.

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Nora Sarvetnick, Ph.D.
Howard Fox, M.D., Ph.D., and Nora Sarvetnick, Ph.D., recently secured a $3 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant thanks in large part to the support of the UNMC Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Core Facility and its director Pawel Ciborowski, Ph.D.

The five-year grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse will help Drs. Fox and Sarvetnick understand how methamphetamine affects the immune system, especially when there is a virus infection.

The technology used in the core lab as well as Dr. Ciborowski’s own input into the project impressed the grant reviewers, said Dr. Fox, professor of pharmacology and experimental neuroscience.

“Our reviews indicated that this core is considered state-of-the-art and the fact that Dr. Ciborowski is a scientific as well as technical contributor was a significant strength for the grant,” Dr. Fox said.

The grant’s success highlights the overall importance of core facilities to the UNMC research enterprise, Dr. Fox said.

“Our core facilities are truly essential to our research on this campus and it was gratifying to see them recognized directly in this award,” Dr. Fox said.