September 29, 2003

Boise State Received Major New Grant For Biomedical Equipment For New Lab

Boise State University is the recipient of a major grant from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust that will fund the acquisition of biomedical equipment for a new Molecular Interactions Laboratory. The $327,500 grant will be used to purchase scientific equipment that will support a broad range of Boise State research projects, including studies of Alzheimer’s disease, the structure and function of collagen, and the cause of serious side effects in a certain class of chemotherapeutic drugs. “This grant will provide a major boost to biomedical research efforts at Boise State,” said Martin Schimpf, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and the grant’s principal investigator. “It expands the scope of research we can conduct here.” The new Molecular Interactions Laboratory will focus on an area of biomedical research involving proteomics, which builds on the knowledge gained from the Human Genome Project. The lab will study proteins — large molecules that are built according to directions encoded in the DNA — and their interactions with other molecules in a living organism. Understanding the structure and associated function of proteins is a critical step to understanding the mechanisms of disease, and to eventually developing effective diagnoses and treatments. “This research area is much more difficult than the Human Genome project because at the protein level things are much more complex,” Schimpf explained. Scientific equipment that will be purchased with the new Murdock grant includes light scattering equipment and an analytical ultracentrifuge to characterize proteins and their complexes, and a microcalorimeter that measures heat and energy associated with molecular processes. The new lab will also include scientific equipment acquired as part of the Biomedical Research Infrastucture Network (BRIN) and other research programs. According to Schimpf, the new Molecular Interactions Lab joins a growing network of labs  at Boise State that are involved in biomedical research, including the Atomic Force Microscopy Laboratory, the BRIN Protein Core Laboratory and the BRIN Mass Spectrometer Laboratory. “The Murdock  grant will benefit research on several fronts,” Schimpf said. Contact Martin Schimpf College of Arts and Sciences 426-1414 Media contact Janelle Brown communications and marketing 426-1790