We propose to strengthen and enhance the Alaska BRIN project which involves Alaskan public and private college and university campuses in a program to build biomedical infrastructure that is both appropriate to Alaska's needs and that creates capability for competitive funding from NIH R01s. We are particularly concerned with priorities that are congruent with National Institutes of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS). Our unifying research theme is toxicogenomics. We will develop research capability in molecular toxicology with emphasis on the contaminants found in animal species used as subsistence foods by Alaska Natives and other rural residents. This theme bridges from the environmental expertise already present on the campuses to the public health concerns of Alaska's peoples. The Alaska BRIN project funded in September 2001 supports: two new faculty hires in toxicogenomics and one in bioinformatics, instruments for proteomics, creation of the statewide network, and support for graduate students as well as undergraduate research and teaching at campuses across the state. This supplemental proposal has five Specific Aims:1) to enlarge the Core toxicogenomics group by hiring three new tenure track faculty; molecular epidemiology [University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA)]; wildlife toxicology [University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF)]; neurotoxicology (UAF) and a medical professional to bridge to the public health and health delivery communities in Alaska.2) to provide instrumentation for the laboratories of new faculty and shared instruments for generalbiochemistry.3) to renovate research laboratory space for the BRIN Magnet Principal Investigator (PI) (Toxicogenomics).4) to enhance the research and teaching at undergraduate colleges in the network, with emphasis on the UAS at Juneau.5) to hire a technician and provide supplies and services for the DNA/Proteomics Core Laboratory.We intend to utilize the BRIN Network to bridge among several new programs (NCRR's BRIN, COBRE, and SNRP and NSF's EPSCoR) that build biomedical research infrastructure in Alaska. Faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and partners in Alaska outside the university, all hold common concerns about improving biomedical research and education in Alaska. Within this Supplement, BRIN resources are targeted to expand shared research facilities, to recruit faculty who bridge between programs, and to search for increasingly congruent research priorities.
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