John Brown University Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Joel Funk has been awarded an Arkansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) grant to fund his research program on bacteria for the next two and a half years.
The grant is for $250,000.
Dr. Funk is studying theCoxiella burnetii bacterium, which invades the immune system, replicates inside human cells and causes the disease Q fever. Funk andhis mentor, Dr. Daniel Voth from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, will be using a nonpathogenic strain to study how the bacteria are able to manipulate the host cell into forming a protected replication compartment. The findings of this research will be used to identify potential drug targets that could result in new therapies for treating Q fever and the many symptoms that it causes.
His proposal was selected for funding from a pool of eight applications for this single award. The funding begins January 2013.
The Arkansas IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence is funded by a grant from the National Institute for General Medical Sciences under the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Program of the National Institutes of Health. The IDeA program was established for the purpose of broadening the geographic distribution of NIH funding for biomedical and behavioral research.
News, Pages 1 on 12/16/2012