ROCK HILL, S.C. - A team of five Winthrop chemistry faculty (Calloway, Lammi, Owens, Parker, & Sumter) and four Winthrop biology faculty (Dimaculangan, Glasscock, Johnston, & Westover), along with collaborative research teams from six other universities across South Carolina, have recently been notified that the National Institutes of Health will be funding South Carolina's proposed five year initiative to increase biomedical research capacity across the State. The $17.3 million federal grant is among the largest ever awarded to a university in the Palmetto State.
Improving citizens’ health represents a major need for South Carolina. One recent study ranks the State fifth in the nation for stroke deaths, third in cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths, and seventh in ischemic heart disease deaths. South Carolina also has some of the highest cancer rates in the nation, ranking in the top 10 nationwide for five to 10 different types of cancer with perhaps the highest prostate cancer mortality rate of any state. Particularly hard-hit are African American South Carolinians, for whom CVD illnesses result in ten years of lost life and for whom prostate and lung cancer incidences are 50 to 60 percent higher than national averages.
In recognition of these major human health concerns and as South Carolina’s second largest primarily undergraduate institution (PUI), Winthrop University is planning to establish a nationally distinctive biomedical research program. Over the next five years, Winthrop Univesity will receive nearly $ 2.4 million from the National Institutes of Health to assist in accomplishing this goal.
Key elements of the proposed multidisciplinary biomedical research program include:
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(Single-Molecule Laser Spectroscopy) |
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USC-Columbia Dr. Dewey Holten Washington University |
(Structural Biochemistry) |
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USC-Columbia Dr. Lukasz Lebioda USC-Columbia |
(Cancer Biochemistry) |
Mobility Group A1 (HMGA1) Binding Domains Required for Tumor Transformation |
Professor USC-Columbia |
(Bioengineering) |
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USC-Columbia |
(Bionformatics) |
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(Cancer Biochemistry) |
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UNC-Chapel Hill Chris M. Tiegland, MD Dept of Urology, CMC |