EUGENE, Ore. — (April 26, 2010) — A $9.1 million grant awarded under the federal government's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will allow the University of Oregon to expand and update its core life sciences research facilities.
The five-year grant is from the National Institutes of Health National Center for Research Resources. Nationally, $10.6 billion in grant applications were submitted in a highly competitive ARRA award process in which only $1 billion were available. Less than 10 percent of applications were selected to receive funding from the NIH center, with the UO receiving about a third of funding going to Oregon and Washington.
At the heart of the newly funded project are structural improvements and new equipment for the UO's zebrafish facility, initially constructed in the 1990s, where these tropical freshwater fish are raised to support genetics and biological research. The expansion effort will significantly increase the size of the facility and allow for more genetic lines of the fish to be generated for research purposes. The grant provides for construction and equipment. The project, planned to begin in 2011, will create local jobs during construction and open the way for subsequent staff expansions.
According to Rich Linton, vice president for research and graduate studies, and the principal investigator on the NIH grant: “This critical infrastructure investment will help sustain the UO's tradition of pioneering research advances incorporating the zebrafish as a valuable model for the study of human development, physiology, behavior, genetics and associated disorders.”
Genetic research on zebrafish – a high priority organism for the NIH – was started at the UO in the early 1970s by biologist George Streisinger. He demonstrated how these members of the minnow family could be a model for studying vertebrate development and genetics. Subsequent zebrafish research worldwide has shed important new insights into a variety of human diseases.
The NIH last year awarded two ARRA grants totaling $1.6 million to UO biologist Monte Westerfield. These grants will allow significant expansion of the federal Zebrafish International Resource Center, particularly to the center's sperm bank cryopreservation facility and for services. In addition, the NIH funds will allow for growth of the center's database and website serving the global life sciences research community.