UAF biomedical program receives $17.7 million boost

Submitted by Marmian Grimes
Phone: 907-474-7902
05/21/09

The Alaska IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence, or INBRE, has received a five-year, $17.7 million National Institutes of Health grant to continue supporting biomedical programs in Alaska.

The funding will initiate the second phase of the INBRE program, which will strengthen biomedical programs across the University of Alaska campuses and build more formal relationships with state public health labs. In an effort to encourage more Alaskans to pursue biomedical careers, it will also support research by high school, college and graduate students.

"This award will help us continue to build the programs and train the people that will focus on dangerous contaminants, bacteria, and viruses in our environment," said INBRE director George Happ. "Alaska collects industrial wastes from lower latitudes and could be an important mixing pot where infectious diseases spread between Asia and North America. We must do our part to protect our citizens and participate in prevention. The University of Alaska can become an important player in global disease surveillance."

INBRE started in 2002 with the goal of improving biomedical infrastructure in Alaska. Since its inception, the program has focused on creating the physical and personnel resources needed to do cutting-edge biomedical research in Alaska. Researchers supported through the INBRE program has examined contaminants in subsistence food species and monitored the prevalence, evolution and ecology of various strains of avian influenza.

CONTACT: George Happ, INBRE director, at 907-474-5492 or george.happ@alaska.edu. Marmian Grimes, UAF public information officer, at 907-474-7902 or via e-mail at marmian.grimes@uaf.edu.

ON THE WEB: www.alaska.edu/inbre/
www.iab.uaf.edu/news/news/INBRE_NIH_NR_5May09.pdf

JW/5-21-09/170-09