Multiple faculty at UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences receive research awards

Several faculty at the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS) have been awarded research grants in the past several weeks totaling nearly $1.75 million to be devoted to a variety of years-long research projects at the School.

• Saobo Lei, professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, received the first-year installment of a two-year, $695,000 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) for a project titled “Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Vasopressin in Anxiety.”
• Collette Adamsen, director of the UND Center for Rural Health’s National Resource Center on Native American Aging, received the first-year installment of a two-year, $385,000 grant from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) for a project titled “Native Urban Elder Needs Assessment Survey (NUENAS).”
• Sarah Sletten and James Porter, professors in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, and Don Warne, director of the School’s Indians into Medicine (INMED) program, received the first-year installment of a $322,260 grant from the DHHS-NIH for a project titled “Indians into Medicine: Native Educator University Research Opportunity in Neuroscience.” The project will help the School develop a program for recruiting American Indian students into neuroscience research.
• Barry Milavetz, professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, received the first-year installment of a two-year DHHS-NIH award worth $139,000 for a project titled “Epigenetic Regulation of the Establishment of an SV40 Infection.”
• Mandi Peterson, senior research analyst in the School’s Healthcare Workforce Group, recently received a one-year, $115,000 award from the North Dakota Department of Health for a project titled “Behavioral Health Workforce Development Year 2.” The award will be used to develop the state’s behavioral health workforce.
• Gary Schwartz, professor and chair of UND’s Department of Population Health, has received a one-year, $89,000 award from the Coverys Community Healthcare Foundation for a project titled “Identifying Women at High risk of Ovarian Cancer.”

Finally, Eric Murphy, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, has been awarded the 2019 American Oil Chemists Society (AOCS) Fellow Award. The award is a prestigious “lifetime” honor that has been given to only two percent of Society members for their outstanding contributions to science, industry, and the AOCS Society. Murphy will be recognized at the AOCS Annual Meeting & Expo, to be held on May 5, 2019, in St. Louis, Mo.

On average, the UND School of Medicine & Health Sciences conducts over $25 million in research activity annually; most research grants are funded by the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Science Foundation, and the DHHS, among other organizations. Research specialties at the SMHS include epigenetics, neuroscience, infectious disease, and population health disparities.