Rice University | News & Media

5/1/2008

IBB awards 2008 Hamill Innovation grants

BY JADE BOYD
Rice News staff

GEORGE
BENNETT
LYDIA
KAVRAKI

JANE GRANDE-ALLEN JUN LOU

YIZHI
JANE TAO

CHING-HWA
KIANG

JASON HAFNER JEFFREY HARTGERINK

JONATHAN SILBERG
JUNGHAE
SUH

The Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB) has awarded Hamill Innovation Grants to five new cross-disciplinary collaborative research projects by Rice faculty. Now in its fourth year, the Hamill Innovation Grant program provides seed funding for potentially high-impact yet high-risk research projects.

"Hamill grants have proven invaluable to Rice faculty who need start-up funding for research with a big potential payoff but which traditional funding agencies see as too risky," said IBB Director Jennifer West, the Isabel C. Cameron Professor of Bioengineering and professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering.

The program provides one-year, $15,000 grants that cover direct start-up costs. Proposals are judged on their originality, scientific rigor, potential impact and integration of the collaborative team.

The Hamill Award Grants program is funded by a grant from the Hamill Foundation, which has supported IBB since its founding in 1986. The 2008 Hamill Award winners will be formally recognized at the fourth annual IBB Symposium June 18.

This year's winners are:

• George Bennett, of the E. Dell Butcher Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, and Lydia Kavraki, the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science and professor of bioengineering, for their project "Computational Discovery and Evaluation of Novel Metabolic Pathways"

•    Jane Grande-Allen, assistant professor in bioengineering, and Jun Lou, assistant professor in mechanical engineering and materials science, for their project "The Development and Application of an In-situ SEM Nanoindenter for Localized Quantitative Measurements of Heart Valve Mechanical Heterogeneity"

•    Yizhi Jane Tao, assistant professor in biochemistry and cell biology, and Ching-Hwa Kiang, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, for their project "Assembly of the Influenza A Virus Ribonucleoprotein Complex"

•    Jason Hafner, assistant professor of physics and astronomy and of chemistry, and Jeffrey Hartgerink, assistant professor of chemistry and bioengineering, for their project "Heterotrimeric Collagen Assembly on Gold Nanorods"

•    Jonathan Silberg, assistant professor in biochemistry and cell biology, and Junghae Suh, assistant professor in bioengineering, for their project "Engineering Protein Switches that Control Adeno-Associated Virus Disassembly for Gene Therapy Applications"