Breadth of Plan Helped Secure Grant

Lawrence Cornett is a professor of physiology and biophysics at UAMS and the statewide director of Arkansas BRIN. He said including institutions from across the state in the project’s proposal probably helped the UA System acquire the NIH grant.

A major emphasis of the program is to allow 10 undergraduates annually from any of the state’s colleges or universities to spend the summer working in research labs at the UA, UALR or UAMS. Multimedia and teleconferencing facilities will be developed on each site so researchers may coordinate their work.

Support money also is included for expanding the UA’s proteomics facility that, as part of the Human Genome Project, is examining structure functions in proteins.

The majority of the rest of the $1.1 million coming to the Fayetteville campus will be divided into $400,000 for support for student research, including summer programs and student living expenses; $220,000 for personnel, mainly faculty, salaries and technical support; $142,000 for new state-of-the-art equipment; $100,000 for biomedical and technical supplies; $50,000 to build a state-of-the-art teleconferencing center and $15,000 for travel expenses.