Boise State researchers are boosting Idaho’s biomedical research with support from a five-year award from the Idaho IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (Idaho INBRE) program. The award is part of a $17 million grant spread across the 11 institutions of the INBRE network: the University of Idaho, Boise State University, Brigham Young University-Idaho, The College of Idaho, College of Southern Idaho, College of Western Idaho, Idaho State University, Idaho Veterans Research and Education Foundation, Lewis-Clark State College, North Idaho College and Northwest Nazarene University.
Boise State will receive two annual sub-awards from the University of Idaho as part of the Idaho INBRE program.
- Boise State INBRE program director Julia Oxford will receive $702,500 over the five-year award to support the INBRE Summer Undergraduate Fellows Research Program, a faculty mentor for that program, Don Warner, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and to support travel for INBRE associated faculty, students and staff to the annual Idaho INBRE Summer Research Conference.
Also associated with this award through a one-year administrative supplement, Boise State will receive approximately $250,000 for research alterations and renovations for a proposed INBRE Biorepository and to support mechanical and biomedical research infrastructure.
- INBRE statewide bioinformatics core director and principal investigator Ken Cornell also will receive $702,500 over the five-year award to support a summer bioinformatics graduate intern, administration of a technology access grant program (open to all statewide INBRE researchers), leadership of the bioinformatics advisory committee and the development of new bioinformatics courses.
Both of these awards will be administered through Boise State’s Biomolecular Research Center and support the overarching statewide goals of the Idaho INBRE program:
1. Build on the established Idaho research network with the scientific focus of cell signaling and strengthen the participating Idaho institutions’ biomedical research expertise and infrastructure.
2. Build and increase the research base and capacity by providing support to faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students at the participating Idaho institutions.
3. Provide research opportunities for undergraduate students and serve as a “pipeline” for these students to continue in health research careers within IDeA states.
4. Enhance Idaho’s workforce knowledge of science and technology.
5. Share established programs and infrastructure through a tristate regional alliance of INBRE networks (RAIN) with Idaho, Montana and New Mexico to reduce redundancy, increase interdisciplinary research collaborations among faculty, and broaden research and education opportunities for students.
Idaho INBRE has been awarded more than $60 million since 2001, not including this new award, to help expand biomedical research capacity at University of Idaho and member institutions.
The program also serves as an economic driver, with $10.3 million in funding given to faculty statewide in the form of research seed grants. That investment resulted in more than $108.7 million in new grants, a tenfold return.
Principal investigator/Idaho INBRE program director Carolyn Hovde Bohach’s project, “Idaho INBRE-4 Program,” is funded under the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number P20GM103408. The total anticipated amount of federal funds for the project is $17,088,792, which amounts to 100 percent of the total cost of the project. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
The website for the statewide Idaho INBRE Program can be found here: https://inbre.uidaho.edu/