UNM Rainforest Innovations has announced the awardees of the 2024 UNM Health Sciences & Main Campus Research Collaboration Seed Grant. The pilot program was launched this past year to support research collaboration efforts and advance research at the University of New Mexico.
The program received 19 early-stage research proposals and ten proposals were selected for funding. Project proposals were required to include at least one Primary Investigator (PI) from UNM Main Campus and one PI from UNM Health Sciences. Each proposal could receive up to $25,000 in funding.
The following proposals were selected for funding:
Proposal Title | PI Name(s) | School(s)/Department(s) |
Establishing a MALDI-TOF Mass Spectrometry-based Analytical Method for Diagnosing Degradation of Li-ion Batteries | Dongchang Chen, PhD, Assistant Professor Changjian (Jim) Feng, PhD, Professor & Assistant Dean for Basic Science Research | College of Arts & Sciences – Department of Chemistry College of Pharmacy – Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences |
Validating the effectiveness of exercise training on regulating glycemic control while decreasing inflammation using HMGB1 as a biomarker in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus | Flavio de Castro Magalhaes, PhD, Asssitant Professor Roberto Ivan Mota Alvidrez, MD, MS, FAHA, Physician Scientist, Assistant Professor & KL2 Scholar | College of Education & Human Sciences – Department of Health, Exercise, & Sports Sciences College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences School of Medicine – Clinical & Translational Science Center |
Acoustic Standing Waves with Precisely Positioned Surfaces for Isolation of Nanoplastics | Steven Graves, PhD, Professor & Associate Dean for Research & Innovation Matt Campen, PhD, MSPH, Regent’s Professor & Director | School of Engineering – Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering College of Pharmacy – Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences New Mexico Center for Metals in Biology and Medicine |
Dry Powder Generation using Microsystems Vibrating Mesh Atomizer | Nathan Jackson, PhD, Associate Professor & Director Pavan Muttil, PhD, Assocaite Professor & Chair | School of Engineering – Department of Mechanical Engineering Nanoscience & Microsystems Engineering (NSME) Program College of Pharmacy – Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences |
Controlling cellular behavior using heterochiral DNAzymes | Matthew Lakin, PhD, Assistant Professor Diane Lidke, PhD, Associate Professor | School of Engineering – Department of Computer Science Center for Biomedical Engineering School of Medicine – Department of Pathology Comprehensive Cancer Center |
Rapid, Culture-free Optical Discrimination of Fungal Pathogens during Acute Infection | Aaron Neumann, PhD, Associate Professor Keith Lidke, PhD, Professor | School of Medicine – Department of Pathology College of Arts & Sciences – Department of Physics & Astronomy |
Structural Study of the Interaction between SARS-CoV-2 Protein ORF3a and Host protein VPS39 | Jing Pu, PhD, Assistant Professor Jun-yong Choe, PhD, Associate Professor | School of Medicine – Department of Molecular Genetics & Microbiology College of Arts & Sciences – Department of Chemistry & Chemical Biology |
Dynamic Prosthetic Interface Biking Mount for Transfemoral Amputees: A Biomechanical Study | Christina Salas, PhD, Associate Professor Selina Silva, MD, Associate Professor & Board Certified Orthopaedic Surgeon | School of Engineering – Department of Mechanical Engineering School of Medicine – Department of Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation |
Advancing Drug Discovery for Obesity: A Federated Generative Adversarial Network Approach | Xiang Sun, PhD, Assistant Professor Xing Zhang, PhD, Research Assistant Professor | School of Engineering – Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering School of Medicine – Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology |
Nanoparticle-mediated Targeted Iron Chelation Therapy for Colorectal Cancer | Xiang Xue, PhD, Associate Professor Achraf Noureddine, PhD, Research Assistant Professor | School of Medicine – Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology School of Engineering – Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering |
Congratulations to this year’s awardees and best of luck on your continued research and collaboration!
Learn more about the Research Collaboration Seed Grant and stay tuned next year an update on the program here: https://innovations.unm.edu/unm-health-sciences-main-campus-research-collaboration-seed-grant/