Arkansas INBRE grant awarded to SAU Biology Department – News

Dr. Jeremy Chamberlain, standing, and Dr. Daniel McDermott verify readings on the movement cytometer in an SAU biology lab.

Dr. Daniel McDermott and Dr. Jeremy Chamberlain of the SAU Division of Biology have acquired a $40,000 grant from the Nationwide Institute of Normal Medical Sciences by means of the Arkansas IDeA Community of Biomedical Analysis Excellence (INBRE) program. This grant is in collaboration with Dr. Lori Neuman-Lee at Arkansas State College (ASU) and Dr. Tiffany Weinkopff on the College of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). This venture goals to determine snakes as a novel mannequin for finding out the innate immune system in animals.

The grant consists of funding to assist each ASU and SAU undergraduate college students within the design, implementation, and evaluation of experiments, in addition to dissemination of outcomes at scientific conferences. “This grant promotes collaborations between SAU Biology college students of various disciplines, offering the chance for our Wildlife college students and Pre-Well being College students to work collectively and be uncovered to methods throughout each fields of examine,” mentioned McDermott.

“Gaining info on the variability of immune components in water snakes is a novel strategy and a departure from the normal mouse mannequin,” mentioned Dr. Abel Bachri, dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering. “The proposed examine guarantees to additional our understanding of innate immune analysis and immunocompetence variability in heterogenous human populations.”

Bachri mentioned the analysis group “brings a mixture of experience to the desk,” and that he seems ahead to their findings.

This examine is made attainable by a recently-acquired movement cytometer funded from an Arkansas INBRE grant awarded to Dr. McDermott in 2019 for the aim of figuring out and analyzing totally different cell sorts. Upon venture completion, additional collaboration between labs at SAU and ASU will make the most of the developed snake mannequin in future immunology initiatives.