Penn State Intercom......January 16, 2003

Grants totaling $1 million to benefit
University's medical projects

Grant from NIH and NSF to promote interest in biomedicine

The Department of Bioengineering, the Department of Chemistry and Hershey Medical Center have received a $700,000, four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to establish a summer research and education institute designed to encourage students to pursue biomedical careers.

Institute co-directors are Cheng Dong, associate professor of bioengineering and director of the Biomolecular Transport Dynamics Option in the Huck Institute for Life Sciences; Peter Butler, assistant professor of bioengineering; Daniel Jones, senior scientist and director of the Intercollegiate Mass Spectrometry Center; and Alan Snyder, professor of bioengineering.

The Penn State Summer Institute will provide a high-quality research and learning experience for upper-level undergraduate students and first-year graduate students majoring in engineering, physical science, life science or clinical science. Designed to stimulate interest in bioengineering and bioinformatics, the two-year interdisciplinary program will emphasize the roles of biomaterials and bio-nanotechnology in the health sciences.

Qualified students will be placed in institute member laboratories for two consecutive summers, during which they will perform research under the guidance of faculty mentors, participate in workshops on experimental and computational techniques, and attend seminars given by academic and industry leaders in the biomaterials and bio-nanotechnology fields. Students will present their research findings formally at the end of each summer session.

The institute will recruit up to 15 students per summer and will provide stipends and housing allowances. For program information, call Anna Butler at (814) 863-6613.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation aids immunization project

A $300,000 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Generalist Faculty Physician Scholar Award to the Penn State Immunization Project will develop a model to help primary care providers respond to parents' concerns about childhood immunizations.

The project is directed by Benjamin H. Levi, a pediatrician at Penn State Children's Hospital and assistant professor in the Department of Humanities.

The premise of the project is that parents and primary care providers, alike, have children's best interests at heart. By systematically identifying and analyzing assertions levied at childhood immunizations, and then creating an educational workshop based on their findings, Levi and co-investigator Georgia Brown aim to better contextualize the immunization debate for all involved. Their target audience is primary care providers: pediatric, family practice and internal medicine physicians, nurse practitioners and public health nurses.

Levi and Brown have developed a database for identifying and analyzing the many assertions that give rise to pubic concern about the safety, efficacy and appropriateness of routine childhood immunizations. To apply the findings of the database, Levi and Brown also are developing an educational workshop that will help primary care providers better understand parents' concerns and respond to them.

Levi and Brown have been working for several years, supported in part by Children's Miracle Network, to design their multi-tiered, cross-indexable database. What their most recent grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation makes possible is for Levi and Brown to dedicate the majority of their time to the development and population of their database, and the design, pilot testing, and implementation of their educational workshop.

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