Success Stories

The University of Kansas Medical Center has been awarded a five-year, $31 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) IDeA program to coordinate clinical trials for infants and children in rural and underserved areas. The grant, awarded earlier this month, is the largest five-year award in the history of KU Medical Center and one of the largest such awards ever received at the University of Kansas.

In April, DE-INBRE hosted our EAC and network members at the University of Delaware. Our network highlighted IDeA programing and collaboration in DE along with providing updates on the DRPP, Data Science and other DE-INBRE initiatives. We rounded out day 1 of the meeting with a tour of the newly opened Building X, an interdisciplinary hub of collaboration and discovery for the sciences.

In 2024, Guam NSF EPSCoR senior researcher Christopher Lobban, Ph.D., received an award from the Japanese Society of Diatomology for his paper “Disymmetria reticulata, gen. nov., sp. nov. (Mediophyceae: Thalassiosirales), a new genus in Lauderiaceae emend., and transfer of Lauderia excentrica.” Lobban, a UOG professor emeritus of biology, is the first non-Japanese member of the organization to receive an award.

Dr. José Rodríguez Medina, Director of the PR-INBRE program and faculty member of the Department of Biochemistry, was interviewed as part of the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine’s 75th anniversary. Watch the interview at the link below and follow PR-INBRE for more!

From Dr. Martha Bickford - It has been an absolute pleasure to work with KBRIN/KY INBRE for the past 11 years. Serving as Associate Director since 2014 and Director since 2020 has been extremely gratifying.

On July 1, Ming Lei, senior associate vice president in the WVU Health Sciences Center Office of Research and Graduate Education and vice dean of research in the WVU School of Medicine, will assume the role of interim vice president at the WVU Research Office.

Boise State University Department of Biological Sciences Professor Jennifer Forbey won the 2025 Jean’ne M. Shreeve National Science Foundation Estab­lished Program to Stim­u­late Com­pet­i­tive Research (EPSCoR) Research Excellence Award.

Growing up in Southern California, Julie Heath frequented the beach, mountains and desert with a growing fascination for the natural world. As a high school student, she became a volunteer at SeaWorld San Diego, helping raise penguins for exhibit.

Her passion and care for birds only grew from there.

Dr. Sharon Rounds, professor and associate dean at Brown University and longtime champion of the NIH IDeA program, was recognized for receiving the 2025 W. Fred Taylor Award at the February 2025 EIC/EIF Annual Meeting in a recent press release by Brown University recognizing faculty who received prominent awards and distinctions in Spring 2025.

To strengthen innovation and research across the state, Mississippi has launched the Mississippi Emerging Research Institutions Council (MERIC). This new initiative brings together colleges and universities that are committed to research excellence but face unique challenges in gaining recognition, acquiring funding, and building infrastructure.