The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) has received a $6.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish a research institute focused on virology and virus ecology.
UAPB researchers will partner with other institutions to study virus systems across domains of life, according to a press release.
Dr. Anissa Buckner, professor and chair of the department of biology will serve as co-principal investigator and lead. Dr. Traci Hudson, assistant professor in the department of biology, will work alongside University of Arkansas principal investigator Dr. Rueben Michael Ceballos.
Research members also include Dr. Han Tan, assistant professor in the School of Biology and Ecology at the University of Maine; Dr. Nathan Reyna, associate professor at Ouachita Baptist University; and Dr. Elizabeth Padilla, assistant professor at La Universidad Interamericana in Puerto Rico. They will serve as co-principal investigators on the NSF grant and lead hubs at these partner institutions.
Their central goal will be to expand the suite of viruses by recruiting other labs and institutions to participate in the research. Using a common experimental approach, data from studies of all virus systems will be compared and integrated to generate “rules of life” that drive variables such as species jump, virus harbor state, changes in transmission rates and emergence of highly virulent virus strains.
The institute will be supported by a new microscopy core facility equipped with a high-end confocal fluorescence microscope, electron microscopes and light microscopes. It will also feature a core virology and virus ecology laboratory. This infrastructure will support research efforts as well as domestic and international collaborative projects, training workshops, planning meetings and initiatives related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
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