UTSA will build on the infrastructure support provided by the RCMI. In the long term, faculty hired in biocomputation will submit program project grants and develop a biocomputational doctoral program. The RCMI will be housed in the new Cajal Neuroscience Institute, whose mission is to support and develop neuroscience at UTSA. The Cajal Neuroscience Institute is charged with developing a neuroscience doctoral program with the University of Texas Health Science Center. Both new doctoral programs will train underrepresented students from UTSA. We will continue the success of the RCMI-supported Cajal Neuroscience Research Center by completing the following specific aims.
Specific Aim 1. Continue the Administrative Core A and seminar series.
Specific Aim 2. Establish a Faculty Development Core B that will hire three assistant/associate professors in biocomputation.
Specific Aim 3. Expand the capabilities of the Imaging Core C to include multi-photon microscopes. We propose to expand the TEM Core facility into the Imaging Core Facilities by incorporating our existing confocal microscope and adding multiphoton microscopy capability.
Specific Aim 4. Establish a Bioinformatics Core D. We propose to develop a new core to support research of RCMI-faculty hire Yufang Wang and other faculty in DNA sequence analysis, comparative genomics, molecular evolution, and population genetics of vertebrate and microbial gene.
Specific Aim 5. Develop a Proteomics Core E. The facility will purchase equipment for identifying proteins, quantifying protein expression levels, determining protein amino acid sequences, and locating protein expression within tissues and cells.
Specific Aim 6. Support four research development grants that will lead to RO1 submissions in the third year of the grant. In the previous grant faculty core leaders and the research development faculty submitted 29 research applications and were awarded over $17 million in new grant monies. Here we propose to continue with new development projects: Richard LeBaron, Ph.D. Integrin ligands in synaptic plasticity. Matthew Gdovin, Ph.D. Neuroanatomical properties of central respiratory chemoreceptors. Robert Renthal, Ph.D. Genetic determinants of social behavior in ants. Kay Robbins, Ph.D. Data analysis and visualization in support of computational neuroscience. The NIH funding requested in this application in the areas of additional support for hiring research faculty and state of the art research core equipment represent existing critical research needs. Constriction in support from the State of Texas makes it unlikely that the goals of this grant could be achieved without RCMI support. RCMI funding in combination with the institution's demonstrated commitment and expenditures in faculty, the Biosciences Building and the new Bioengineering Science and Engineering building will make a powerful partnership to insure the development of a successful University and an RCMI center of excellence. ? ?
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