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

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
Dr. James Culver Awarded NSF Funding to Study How Viruses Reprogram Phloem Specific Tissues Dr. James Culver, Professor at the University of Maryland Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) and Department of Plant Sciences and Landscape Architecture, has recently been awarded funding from the National Science Foundation to study how viruses reprogram phloem specific tissues to mediate their long distance transport. In vascular plants, the capacity of a virus to cause disease is often linked to its ability to move throughout host tissues. Dr.Culver’s proposal hypothesizes that the interaction between a Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) replicase protein and a... Read More
IBBR Researchers Develop Procedure for Screening Microbes for Broad-Spectrum Antibiotics Resistance Research from the laboratories of Drs. Shuwei Li (UM IBBR/CHEM&BCHM) and Daniel Nelson (UM IBBR/VETMED) has led to the development of a quick and sensitive procedure for screening microbes that are resistant to certain broad-spectrum antibiotics. The group recently published the findings, titled “Ratiometric Fluorescence Detection of Pathogenic Bacteria Resistant to Broad-Spectrum β-Lactam Antibiotics”, in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition. Angewandte Chemie, an internationally renowned, peer-reviewed scientific... Read More