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Grants Invest in Interdisciplinary Work That May Produce Bigger, Federally Funded Projects

Nov. 21, 2019

The first year of The University of Texas at Dallas seed grant initiative has provided $2.2 million to a diverse range of research and scholarly projects with the aim of providing faculty a springboard to earning larger, highly competitive grants.

The Office of Research program, announced last fall, was conceived by Dr. Joseph Pancrazio, vice president for research, who described it as among the largest such programs in the state.

Research, scholarship and creativity play a key role in our growth as an institution, said Pancrazio, who is also a professor of bioengineering in theErik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. These programs build upon the interdisciplinary work that is a hallmark of the UTDallas experience for our faculty and students. The hope is that this seed funding leads to new ideas that then become the source for new grant proposals and projects.

Distributions to UTDallas from the National Research University Fund (NRUF), a source of state research funding that the University first qualified for in 2018, freed up resources to create the seed grants.

By investing in our faculty while incentivizing collaboration, we are reinforcing a research culture that will encourage prospective investigators to join our academic community as well as earn a return-on-investment relative to federally sponsored research, Pancrazio said.

The seed grants fall into seven categories and will fund work in seven of the Universitys schools.

The program is overseen by Dr. Nicole Leeper Piquero, Robert E. Holmes Jr. Professor of Criminology, who said the program is an exciting way to invest in faculty and encourage interdisciplinary collaboration.

We offer 10 different ways to support researchers from all across our campus, including opportunities for them to showcase their work with workshops both here at UTDallas as well as in Washington, D.C., said Piquero, who is also associate vice president for research development.

Among the seven programs is the Collaborative Biomedical Research Award (CoBRA), which was specifically designed to stimulate interdisciplinary research between faculty at UTDallas and UTSouthwestern Medical Center. Three projects led by Dr. Danieli Rodrigues, associate professor of bioengineering; Dr. Lloyd Lumata, assistant professor of physics; and Dr. Lawrence Reitzer, professor of biological sciences, each received $250,000.

Lumatas grant supports research to develop biomedical imaging techniques, and Reitzers work focuses on combating urinary tract infections.

Rodrigues said the CoBRA award will enable her team to expand the application of an immune-interactive coating she is developing for titanium orthopedic implants that may reduce the implantation failure rate for diabetic patients.

This initiative will give us the opportunity to generate data that will support development and feasibility demonstrations, helping our team to pursue larger grant opportunities in the future, Rodrigues said. It will also promote interdisciplinary training by enabling UTD graduate students and residents from UTSouthwestern to work together on new ways to boost implant healing in immune-compromised cases.

Another program, called the Major Extramural Grant Award (MEGA), assists researchers who are gathering preliminary data to support their pursuit of individual external grant opportunities of at least $6 million. The two MEGA recipients, Dr. Roderick Heelis, director of the William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences, and Dr. Bart Rypma, the Meadows Foundation Chair in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, each received $200,000 for their proposals.

The Office of Research invites potential applicants to Proposers Day on Friday, Nov. 22, to learn more about the internal funding opportunities available in the next cycle of seed grant initiatives. Registration is required.

Rypmais investigating brain-imaging techniques, while Heelis work aims to better understand Earths space environment and how it affects areas such as communication, navigation and the reentry of space vehicles. His MEGA project seeks to develop innovative techniques to measure the dynamics of particles and gases in the environment around orbiting satellites.

The experiments we do in space are really expensive. Sponsors like NASA and the Air Force wont give you all the money for a project just based on one proposal, said Heelis, Distinguished Chair in Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

Backing from the University allows us to turn our experiments and our conceptual ideas into real things: Heres the prototype device; here are the results from testing it in the lab, Heelis said. And we can put those forward in our second-phase grant proposal. This gives us a much more competitive chance of winning.

The Office of Research awarded seed grants in seven programs:

Media Contact: Stephen Fontenot, UT Dallas, (972) 883-4405,[emailprotected]or the Office of Media Relations, UT Dallas, (972) 883-2155, [emailprotected]

Read more from the original source:
University's Seed Grant Initiative Helps Researchers' Pursuits Blossom - University of Texas at Dallas