This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. The primary goal of the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Neuroscience (Neuroscience COBRE) has been to enhance the infrastructure of neuroscience research and graduate training across the University of Vermont (UVM) campus. During the past year, which represents the ninth year of funding, the Neuroscience COBRE continued to have three main aims: (1) to support the research and intellectual infrastructure of a University-wide Center for Neuroscience Excellence at UVM, (2) to promote the research development of neuroscience faculty who will be the future leaders in the UVM Center for Neuroscience Excellence and (3) to support the continued growth of a University wide Neuroscience graduate training program. Significant progress continues to be made in meeting these goals. The role of the Administrative Core is to provide both intellectual and administrative support for the Neuroscience COBRE. The Administrative Core oversees the mentoring program which provides critical guidance for our four COBRE-supported investigators: Drs. Miguel Martin-Caraballo from the Department of Biology, Alan Howe from the Department of Pharmacology, Jeffrey Spees from the Department of Medicine and Uma Wesley from the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. Faculty mentoring is a major emphasis of this program, and senior faculty members guide the research activities of each of these four COBRE-supported neuroscience investigators. The staff within the Administrative Core process purchase orders and salary distributions and provide ongoing financial analysis for all Project and Core Directors. The Administrative Core also supports Neuroscience junior faculty research programs. During this past year, COBRE funds were expended to provide support for a technician, Ms. Kristen Schutz, for Dr. Hammack (Department of Psychology), a junior neuroscientist who was provided recruitment funds from the initial COBRE award. The Neuroscience COBRE grant continues to support two multi-user research core facilities: the Cellular/Molecular Biology Core and Imaging/Physiology Core. These cores were established by the initial COBRE award to provide access to research tools critical to the work proposed in the four neuroscience faculty projects and to support research programs by many other UVM neuroscientists. This year, one focus of the annual review by the External Advisory Committee will be assess these two research Cores as the PI and Co-PI develop a competitive grant application for future core support. Each of the Core Directors will present an overview of the Core, describing specialized equipment items, activities and usage patterns. In prior visits to UVM the External Review Committee members have enthusiastically supported the Core activities and have indicated the key research support that they provide for neuroscientists and other investigators at this institution. They also were supportive of the acquisition of additional equipment over the past few years to meet the needs of the user group. The Translational Core, a third core developed in year 2 of the initial funding period, facilitates interaction between basic and clinical neuroscientists. The Translational Core supports a didactic course, entitled Basic Science of Neurological Diseases, which is presented to graduate students, residents, and faculty. The course this year is being presented in the Spring semester and concerns an overview of dementias of the elderly. This Core Co-Director Dr. Felix Eckenstein continued to administer the COBRE-supported Summer Neuroscience Undergraduate Research Fellowship. Nineteen undergraduate students participated in this ten-week research intense program with their stipends and lodging expenses paid by in part by Translational Core funds and by a supplemental grant (Supplement 3P20 RR016435-09S1) to this COBRE grant. Three were underrepresented minority students. This past year over 160 undergraduate students applied for the program. The Administrative Core also supported a plenary Neuroscience lecture entitled """"""""Brain Cancer: Current Paradigms,"""""""" presented by Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hisojosa, Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University. This presentation was part of the annual neuroscience retreat held January 29-30, 2010 and sponsored jointly by the Neuroscience COBRE and the local Vermont Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience. This retreat was organized to highlight neuroscience research accomplishments at UVM and consisted of oral and poster presentations by neuroscientists from departments across the UVM campus. The Administrative Core will organize the Annual COBRE Review to be held in June 2010. The annual review by the External Advisory Committee will have two major goals. The first objective will be to review the two Neuroscience COBRE-supported research core facilities: the Cell/Molecular Core and Imaging/Physiology Core, in preparation for submission of a competitive renewal application for continued core support. The second goal is to provide guidance to three COBRE-supported Pilot Projects which will be supported in year 10 of this grant. Funds to support Pilot Projects in year 10 became available because two of the initial COBRE projects will not receive funding in the last grant year. As indicated in the Progress Report for Year 8, after review by the PI, Co-PI and two members of the External Advisory Committee (Drs. John Bixby, University of Miami Medical School and Steven Heinemann, Salk Institute), Dr. Alan Howe was informed that based on his lack of productivity he would not receive funding in year 10. He was provided funding in Year 9 to complete experiments required for submission of manuscripts. Dr. Miguel Martin-Caraballo Miguel did not receive tenure and is leaving the University at the end of June 2010. Because of the transitions of these two key personnel and their projects, funds are available for three new pilot projects. Applications for new initiatives in neuroscience research to be supported by these funds were solicited from junior to mid-career faculty in the neuroscience community across the UVM campus. The solicitation was targeted towards faculty who had projects that had already been submitted and reviewed by an external agency, and were scored, but not funded. Critical to the review was the derivation of a project that could be completed within one year of funding and that would substantially enhance the potential success of a future resubmission of the parent application. Six applications were received. The PI and Co-PI initially reviewed the applications and chose the top three to be evaluated by members of the Internal Advisory Committee. The guidelines and applications were sent to the External Advisory Committee (EAC) on March 1st and comments from Dr. Mahendra Rao, Vice President for Research, Invitrogen Corp and Dr. John Bixby, University of Miami Medical School, two members of the EAC were received in March. Both supported funding all three Pilot Projects. The Pilot Project titles and Project Directors are: Dr. Sayamwong E. Hammack (Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology). Pilot Project entitled """"""""Role of PACAP in anxiety-like behavioral consequences of chronic stress"""""""". Dr. Jesse V. Jacobs (Assistant Professor, Department of Rehabilitation and Movement Science). Pilot Project entitled """"""""The Neurophysiology of postural coordination with low back pain"""""""". Dr. Diane M. Jaworski (Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology). Pilot Project entitled """"""""Regulation of aspartoacylase in glioma: potential role as a tumor suppressor"""""""". A senior neuroscience faculty member will be assigned as a mentor for each of the Pilot Project Directors (Dr. Victor May, Professor Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology for Dr. Hammack;Dr. Rae Nishi, Professor Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology for Dr. Jaworski;and Dr. Sharon Henry, Professor Department of Rehabilitation Sciences and Movement Science for Dr. Jacobs). A major accomplishment made during the first COBRE funding period was the development of a university-wide Neuroscience Doctoral Training Program. The current COBRE grant continues to support this multi-disciplinary graduate training program in Neuroscience as many of the participating faculty members are involved with the Neuroscience COBRE. Stipends for graduate students working in the laboratories of the four Project Directors were made available through COBRE funding. The training faculty is derived from multiple departments in many Colleges across the campus, creating a breadth of training opportunities that is truly diverse. We are currently finishing the fourth year of this program and both the number and quality of student applications to the program has increased markedly. Dr. Rae Nishi, a COBRE mentor and member of the Internal Advisory Board, continues in her role as Graduate Program Director. Two supplemental grants (3P20 RR016435-09S1 and 3P20 RR016435-09S2) associated with the parent COBRE grant were received during year 9 of the COBRE award. Supplement 3P20 RR016435-09S1: The goals of the COBRE Neuroscience Supplement 3P20 RR016435-09S1 are to increase the number of students and enhance their experience in a Neuroscience COBRE-supported Summer Neuroscience Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SNURF) at the University of Vermont. This objective is consistent with the primary objective of the parent grant, which is to support the infrastructure for research and training in neuroscience across the UVM campus. For the past 6 years, approximately eight students have participated in the SNURF each summer. The program includes an intensive 10-week laboratory experience plus supporting didactic presentations. The majority of past participants have gone on to medical or graduate school, or have obtained technical positions in science laboratories. The SNURF summer jobs provide participating students with a stipend, housing, textbooks, and incidental expenses for ten weeks while they receive training in hands-on neuroscience research and assist UVM faculty in their experiments. With these supplemental funds, 9 additional students were able to participate in the 2009 SNURF program. The students were selected from approximately 180 applicants (median GPA: 3.6) and worked with 17 participating faculty from five departments. This summer four of the participating students were from UVM, two from Middlebury College and the remainder enrolled at schools throughout the USA. The students'work is expected to facilitate the generation of publications and submissions of research grant proposals by their faculty mentors. Besides training in research, our program also provides information and counseling regarding career choice to these talented students, who often go on to join graduate or medical school programs as their next step of professional development. Supplement 3P20 RR016435-09S2: The goals of the COBRE Neuroscience Supplement 3P20 RR016435-09S2 are specifically directed to further strengthen the neuroscience research infrastructure at the University of Vermont by three mechanisms: (a) supporting technical positions in laboratories of neuroscience investigators in order to increase their productivity and competitiveness, (b) facilitating interactions between basic science and clinical investigators, and (c) supporting the acquisition of equipment items needed to increase the sophistication of the Cellular/Molecular and Imaging/Physiology Cores. The overall goal, as with the parent grant, is to facilitate the ability of UVM investigators to obtain extramural funding for their research programs. This supplement aids the development of translational research projects by supporting 5 technical personnel in several different laboratories. The technical positions represent both new hires and persons whose jobs would have ended due to lack of funds. Projects these personnel support are 1) a study of the role of the neuropeptide PACAP in the etiology of anxiety disorders, 2) a study that examines the gender-specific role of the breakdown of extracellular matrix in the development of obesity and insulin resistance, 3) a study that explores the role of the fat-derived hormone leptin in organizing the reproductive circuitry in the developing brain, 4) a study that investigates injury-induced changes in the electrical and chemical properties of neurons in the heart, and 5) studies in three laboratories that depend on a colony of mice that spontaneously develop neuroblastoma, a devastating childhood cancer. In addition to providing two years of guaranteed support for jobs for 5 people, an additional $100,000 was awarded to purchase equipment items that will significantly enhance the capability of two Neuroscience COBRE Core facilities, Cellular/Molecular and Imaging/Physiology, that support multiple laboratories.
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