[Wesleyan University]
   

Wesleyan University Earns National Institute of General Medical Sciences Grant

Five-Year Grant to Fund Wesleyan's Molecular Biophysics Training Program

For immediate release: Tuesday, August 31, 2004

(MIDDLETOWN, CT) – Wesleyan University is one of 27 U.S. universities to receive a five-year grant of more than $600,000 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS). The NIGMS grant, an arm of the National Institute of Health, will renew funding for Wesleyan University's Biophysics Training Program.

The renewal of the grant will be announced at the Fifth Annual Molecular Biophysics Retreat on Thursday, September 9th at the Wadsworth Mansion in Middletown. The full day retreat will feature undergraduate and graduate research displays and will conclude at 4 p.m. with a talk by keynote speaker Dr. Joshua Boger, Chairman and CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Cambridge, Mass. Boger's talk is called "Information-Intensive Drug Discovery and the Leverage of Biophysics."

Wesleyan's Biophysics Training Program funds three graduate students each year, of whom are Chemistry, Molecular Biology or Physics majors. The graduate students rely on the funds to lure speakers in their fields to campus, to travel to field-related conferences and for lab research.

Since the training program began at Wesleyan during the 1980's, it has brought in more than two and a half million dollars to the University's science programs. "We are very pleased to be able to sustain an active academic initiative in this area, which brings faculty, undergraduate and graduate students together and helps with their career development," says David Beveridge, director of Wesleyan's Molecular Biophysics Program.

The program is also comprised of eight faculty members and 27 graduate students as well as additional postdoctoral research associates and undergraduate students in the Departments of Chemistry, Molecular Biology and Physics. Molecular Biophysics at Wesleyan is an interdepartmental, interdisciplinary program situated in the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

For more information, please contact Laura Perillo at 860-685-3813 or lperillo@wesleyan.edu.