ASU awarded $5 million grant to fight disease, improve health | News

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded ASU’s Center for NanoBiotechnology  Research (CNBR) a five-year grant totaling nearly $5 million, which will help the Center develop new drugs against bacteria and viruses and create nanobiotechnological tools to improve human health.
The Alabama State University CNBR was established in 2007 to enhance ASU's research infrastructure and to train faculty and students in the new emerging areas of nanotechnology and nanobiotechnology.

Dr. Shree R. Singh, CNBR director and professor of microbiology at ASU, said the new five-year grant was awarded based on the Center’s accomplishments during the last five years, and that the innovation of this newly awarded research project involvies nanotechnology and genomics, which is very unique for this type of research award.
 
“With the new $5 million funding from the NSF, the CNBR at ASU moves its research to a very new field of nanogenomics and will provide training to many students and scientists in this field. Also, this research area has a huge potential in developing innovative materials that can be used for diagnosis and treatment of human diseases,” Singh said.
 
“The next five years of funding will focus on research in developing novel nanomaterials that can be used to treat viral and bacterial diseases, as well as  therapeutics that can enhance disease-fighting immune responses."

In awarding the grant, the NSF cited ASU's success in terms of research output, establishment of infrastructure, hiring of research faculty and transitioning them to tenure-track faculty and graduating minority Ph.D.'s.
“One of the most exciting components of the ASU program is that it continues to provide research training to students starting from high school all the way to Ph.D. students. The University trained and graduated the first cohort of Ph.D.'s in microbiology students in 2011, making history by producing the first Ph.D.'s at ASU,” Singh said.

The CNBR is managed by Singh, Dr. Vida Dennis, Dr. Shreekumar Pillai and a team of ASU faculty researchers, including Mamie Coats, Peter Noble, Elijah Nyairo, Shivani Soni, Komal Vig and Alain Waffo. 

For more information on ASU’s Center for NanoBiotechnology, contact 334-229-4168 or visit the CNBR website.

Source: ASU Office of Media and Public Relations