Recently, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued a request for proposals in order to address the nation’s shortage of medical isotopes. Here at Washington State University we have made progress in medical isotopes research, which affords us the potential to make a significant and lasting impact on the world around us.

Every year in America, over 25 million medical diagnostic procedures and treatment strategies that rely on the medical isotope molybdenum-99 (Mo-99) are performed. But the supply of this isotope is in jeopardy and our nation faces catastrophic failure of the supply chain.  The resulting shortage will put a halt to these invaluable procedures, which involve many cardiac and cancer patients.

Continue reading »

Recently, I had the pleasure of participating in a Roundtable Discussion at Oregon State University at the Center for Genome Research and Biocomputing. Other attendants included Sonny Ramaswamy from OSU, Steve Jacobsen from UCLA, and Michael Lynch from Indiana University. The title of the discussion was “Issues Affecting Research, Funding & Education in Molecular Biosciences at OSU.”

Because I have received a few requests for the PowerPoint presentation I used during the discussion, I have decided to make it available here. OSU.pptx.

Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments.

Cheers.

Howard Grimes

Several months ago, President Obama promised to use part of the ARRA stimulus money to invest in research universities. It’s refreshing to see that the federal government recognizes investing in basic research as one way to stimulate our economy. In response to this opportunity, the faculty at WSU have done amazing work, which includes having grown our proposals from $558 MM to $724 MM from FY08 to FY09. We are continuing to expand these efforts. In this blog, I will offer highlights of the “Research Stimulus Plan,” but WSU faculty members should stay tuned for further internal communication, which will outline details relevant to them.

Over the past few months, WSU has secured two new NSF IGERT grants while retaining one previous NSF IGERT, and renewing two NIH training grants. Our current success on this front moves us to an elite cluster of research universities. In addition, our faculty are doing great things including submitting record numbers of competitive individual proposals. We are also forging new territory in team-based problem solving proposals that involve multiple WSU partners and, often, inter-institutional and inter-organizational partners.

Continue reading »