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Ļć½¶Ö±²„ School of Medicine to Announce More Than $20 Million in New Research Grants

View of the front of the building on the Lubbock campus

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Ļć½¶Ö±²„ Lubbock Campus Building

The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (Ļć½¶Ö±²„) School of Medicine announced $20.5 million in new research funding this year.

Steven Berk, M.D., Ļć½¶Ö±²„ executive vice president, provost and School of Medicine dean, said these grants focus in areas such as cancer, alcoholism, pain management, neuroscience and infectious diseases.

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Dean Berk Speaks About Awards for the School of Medicine

Steven Berk, M.D., Ļć½¶Ö±²„ executive vice president, provost and School of Medicine Dean

ā€œThe School of Medicine is dedicated to providing the best care and one way to achieve that is through research,ā€ Berk said. ā€œResearch leads to new knowledge and discoveries which allows our experts to seek new treatments and develop new medications. Research goes hand-in-hand with better technology, cures and teaching future physicians.ā€

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), including the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the Department of Defense (DOD), along with others from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), awarded the grants.

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President Mitchell honors research awardees

President Tedd L. Mitchell, M.D., Texas Tech University System Interim Chancellor and Ļć½¶Ö±²„ President

ā€œThis celebration is to recognize the outstanding work of our investigators in cancer, vaccine and drug development, pain management, aging, infectious diseases and other fields,ā€ Texas Tech University System Interim Chancellor and Ļć½¶Ö±²„ President Tedd L. Mitchell, M.D., said. ā€œThey have the full support of our leadership and our faculty. Externally funded peer-reviewed research at Ļć½¶Ö±²„ is truly excellent and is growing rapidly. The discovery of new knowledge has always been a core mission.ā€

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Dean Smith discusses the impact for research

Quentin Smith, Ph.D., Ļć½¶Ö±²„ Senior Vice President of Research

Grants include:

Sanjay Awasthi, M.D., Department of Defense, $1,147,500.00 over three years
ā€œPrevention of Breast Cancer by Haploinsufficiency of RALBP1ā€

Patrick Reynolds, M.D., Ph.D., and Min Kang, Pharm.D., NIH/NCI, $2 million over five years, ā€œMYC Activation in Tumor Progression of Neuroblastomaā€ and also NIH/NCI, $1,622,266 over three years, ā€œCharacterization of a panel of neuroblastoma patient-derived models for preclinical therapeutic studiesā€

Reynolds, also received an NIH/NCI, $1,749,940 over five years
ā€œAlternate telomere maintenance mechanisms in high-risk neuroblastoma as prognostic indicators and therapeutic targetsā€

H. Liang, Ph.D., CPRIT, $200,000 over two years
ā€œPolymer nanodiscs: Novel lipoprotein-mimicking nanocarriers with high stability and long circulation time for enhanced anticancer drug deliveryā€

Yangzom Bhutia, Ph.D., NIH, $153,000.00
ā€œCarbidopa as an inhibitor of the TrpT/IDO1 complex: Potential for use as an immunotherapy agent?ā€

H. Liang, Ph.D., NSF, $457,931 over three years
ā€œNanostructure engineering is another approach toward membrane-active antimicrobials with desirable activity and selectivityā€

Lan Guan, Ph.D., NIH NIGMS, $1,300,500 over five years
ā€œIntegrated approaches to symport mechanisms of membrane transportersā€

Luis Cuello, Ph.D., NIH, $1,247,868 over five years
ā€œHigh-resolution crystallographic and functional studies of potassium channel functionā€

Volker Neugebauer, Ph.D.,NIH/NINDS, $1,536,123.00 over five years
ā€œStress-induced descending facilitation from amygdala kappa opioid receptors in functional painā€

JosƩe Guindon, Ph.D., NIH from NIDA, $691,332.00 over five years
ā€œMechanisms of cannabinoid toleranceā€

Ion Bobulescu, M.D., NIH/NIDDK, 1,047,717.00
ā€œRole of gut bacteria and renal lipids in obesity-related kidney diseaseā€

Susan Bergeson, Ph.D., and Ted Reid, Ph.D., NIH/NIAAA, $60,000 over one year, ā€œDevelopment of Tetracycline Analogs for Alcohol Use Disorder Treatment,ā€ and NIH/NIAAA, $1,639,120.00 over five years, ā€œChemically modified minocycline for treatment of alcohol use disorderā€

Andrey Karamyshev, Ph.D.,NIH/NINDS,$153,000.00 over two years
ā€œIdentification of Translational Regulators of Alpha-Synuclein Folding and Aggregationā€

Sam Prien, Ph.D., NSF, $50,000
ā€œA non-invasive technique for embryo assessmentā€

View the full press conference through Facebook live at .