10/14/2005

14 Research Projects Awarded AAES Foundation Grants

AUBURN , Ala. — Two research projects aimed at preventing outbreaks of deadly bird flu in poultry and, ultimately, in humans, are among 14 Auburn University studies that have been awarded a total of $496,000 in funding through an Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station competitive grants initiative.

The one- to three-year projects approved for funding were selected from a pool of 21 research proposals that Experiment Station researchers in five AU colleges and schools submitted to the AAES Foundation Grant Program.

Basically, the foundation awards are “seed grants” that will allow AAES scientists to conduct pilot studies and generate preliminary data they then can use to go after larger grants from sources outside of AU, said Kira Bowen, research coordinator for the AAES and the AU College of Agriculture.

In fact, the review committee gave priority to proposals that showed the strongest potential for leading to extramural funding from government agencies, private companies, foundations or individuals, she said.

Launched in 2003, the grant program is an effort to help the financially strapped AAES contend with serious funding shortfalls that have been steadily mounting since the mid-1980s. That's when federal support for agricultural research programs began to decline even as the AAES faced rising salaries and increasing operation and maintenance costs.

Funding for the program was made a permanent part of AU's annual appropriation from the Legislature in 2003.

AAES Foundation Grant awards are capped at $40,000 annually for projects involving more than one researcher and $20,000 for single-investigator projects.

The grants are awarded for up to three years, but researchers in the multi-year projects are required each year to document their accomplishments and the progress they have made toward obtaining extramural funding and research results in order to received second- or third-year funding.

The 2005 funded projects involve AAES researchers in the colleges of Agriculture, Sciences and Mathematics, Human Sciences and Veterinary Medicine and the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences.

Principle investigators in the two bird influenza studies are College of Veterinary Medicine pathobiologists Haroldo Toro and Frederik van Ginkel. Toro's research aims to generate a better understanding of poultry's natural immunities to the virus; van Ginkel's will focus on increasing genetic resistance in chickens.

The 12 other projects approved for funding will investigate a broad spectrum of problems, including food safety, “bad” carbohydrates and their link to insulin resistance and obesity, water quality, global warming and carbon sequestration, a highly cancer-causing fungus in peanuts, invasive species and costly livestock and catfish diseases.

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Office of Ag Communications & Marketing

Auburn University College of Agriculture
Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station
3 Comer Hall, Auburn University
Auburn, AL 36849
334-844-4877 (PHONE) 334-844-5892 (FAX)

Contact Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or jcreamer@auburn.edu
Contact Kira Bowden, 334-844-1953 or bowenkl@auburn.edu

For immediate release