News Releases | Page 12 | Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research

Pivotal step forward in understanding an important enzyme that is encoded by bacterial viruses Research from the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Nelson (UM IBBR/VETMED) and colleagues have made a pivotal step forward in understanding an important enzyme that is encoded by bacterial viruses (bacteriophage). The multidisciplinary group, that includes researchers from the University of Maryland, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and The Rockefeller University, and Monash University in Australia, worked together to determine the structure and mechanism of action, including cell wall binding and catalytic activity of the streptococcal C1 phage lysin, PlyC. These findings,... Read More
IBBR 2012 Awardees of Complex Therapeutics Seed Grant Program The University of Maryland Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) is pleased to announce the 2012 awardees of the Complex Therapeutics Seed Grant. This marks the first year of the seed grant program to fund new projects that address research questions pertaining to biologic drugs and vaccines. This program was initiated by the University of Maryland Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) to foster creative teams of investigators working across disciplinary boundaries and campuses: UMD, UMB and NIST. The two seed grants that were selected for funding... Read More
Malaria Vaccine Developer Sanaria Inc. and the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research of the University of Maryland College Park Awarded Collaborative, US $3M NIH Phase II Small Business Innovation Research Grant Sanaria Inc., a privately held company in Rockville, Maryland, and the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) of the University of Maryland College Park announce the receipt of a multi-year Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant, worth nearly $3 million over a 3 year period, will fund research and development to genetically engineer mosquitoes that produce large numbers of parasites for Sanaria’s malaria vaccine manufacturing... Read More
IBBR Professor Roy Mariuzza Wins 2012 Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize Roy Mariuzza, IBBR and CBMG professor is the 2012 recipient of the prestigious Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize. The Kirwan Faculty Research and Scholarship Prize is an annual award that recognizes a UM faculty member for a highly significant work of research, scholarship, or artistic creativity completed within the last three years. The prize includes an honorarium of $5000 and is awarded at the Fall Convocation.
UM, IBBR and CBT Research Awarded DOD Funding Small Animal Imaging System A multidisciplinary group of University of Maryland researchers, led by Dr. Daniel Nelson of the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) and Department of Veterinary Medicine, recently received a grant from the Department of Defense to purchase a Caliper Lumina XR in vivo imaging system (IVIS). Fourteen investigators from the University of Maryland College Park and University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) participated on the proposal. The award was made under the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP), a Department of Defense initiative that enhances... Read More
Drs. Orban and Mariuzza Awarded NIH R21 Funding Drs. John Orban (Professor at the University of Maryland Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry) and Roy Mariuzza (Professor at IBBR and Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics) have recently been awarded R21 funding from the National Institutes of Health to study the process by which an immune cell receptor, the T-cell receptor (TCR) transduces signals across the plasma membrane upon binding a specific ligand, called peptide-MHC (pMHC), that is found on specialized antigen-presenting immune cells. Much is known... Read More
Graduate Student Janet Hsu Awarded WORLD Scholarship Janet Hsu, a graduate student in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland (BIOE), was recently awarded a scholarship from the World Organization for Rare Lysosomal Disorders (WORLD) scholarship to attend the 8th annual meeting in San Diego, CA. Her award-winning abstract, titled “Enhanced Kidney and Heart Delivery of α-Galactosidase by Modulating Enzyme Load and Carrier Bulk-Concentration of ICAM-1-Targeted Nanocarriers” was one of only ten that were selected for this honor. Ms. Hsu is a predoctoral student working in the laboratory of Dr. Silvia Muro,... Read More
Drs. John Orban and Philip Bryan Together Designed and Developed a System that Examines Mutational Requirements for Transitioning Between Folds and Functions The laboratories of Drs. John Orban and Philip Bryan at the University of Maryland Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) have worked together to design and develop a system that examines the mutational requirements for transitioning between folds and functions. The group published the findings in the February 8 issue of the Cell Press journal Structure, authored by He et al., titled “Mutational Tipping Points for Switching Protein Folds and Functions”. In this paper, the Orban and Bryan groups describe their recent research indicating that two different fold... Read More
Muro Group Receives Funding for Developing Therapeutic Strategies for Neurodegenerative Conditions Dr. Silvia Muro, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) and the Fischell Department of Bioengineering, has been awarded funding to explore several therapeutic approaches using specific drug delivery platforms that have been developed in her lab. Dr. Muro’s project funding is through a collaboration with the NIH Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC) and the contract is associated with the NIH program for Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (http://nctt.nih.gov/trnd/). NCGC, a... Read More
Maria Ansar Awarded HHMI Fellowship Maria Ansar, an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland, was awarded a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Fellowship (HHMI). Ms. Ansar, who is an honors student in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, is working on her honors thesis in the lab of Dr. Silvia Muro, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) and the Fischell Department of Bioengineering. The fellowship awarded to Ms. Ansar is sponsored by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute through an Undergraduate Science Education Program grant... Read More