The College has received $2.5 million in grant money for biomedical student and faculty research, equipment, course development, and recruitment, including a four-year, $800,000 grant from Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and a five-year, $1.7 million IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) grant.
"These awards have a huge student impact," Dean of Academic Affairs Craig McEwen said. He noted that some of the money will be applied towards student fellowships, research, honors work, and post-graduate work.
"The grant strengthens Bowdoin's tradition of research and opens up opportunities for students as well as faculty," said McEwen.
The money from the INBRE grant for Bowdoin is a small fraction of a $17.8 million grant linking Bowdoin and six other undergraduate institutes in Maine to the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory and the Jackson Laboratory. The grant focuses on funding research that relates to comparative functional genomics. The grant also funds research-training opportunities for 500 undergraduate students in Maine.
The HHMI grant covers more disciplines than the INBRE grant, encompassing biology, chemistry, math, neuroscience, and physics.
Patsy Dickinson, Professor of Biology and Chair of the Neuroscience department, hopes that the departments will be able to put the money towards expanding Bowdoin's summer research program, developing labs for courses, and fusing courses from different departments.
In addition to continuing the current summer research program, the grant will also be used to encourage more underrepresented minorities, students from Maine, and first generation college students to participate in summer research. Bowdoin will also provide summer workshops for high school student and teacher teams.
"[The HHMI grant will be used] to create a culture of success at Bowdoin and build a community here," Dickinson said.
The science departments will also be able to use the money to acquire new equipment for labs. Assistant Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Seth Ramus hopes to acquire several systems that will take neural recordings of animals for his Learning and Memory labratory course.
Dickinson hopes that the money will also be used to create a science mentoring team, providing quantitative skills development and extensive study groups. The biology department also hopes to sponsor monthly dinners focusing on careers in science. According to Dickinson, these plans could be implemented as soon as next semester.
McEwen noted that there is a range of funding sources for biomedical work and that, in addition to institutional grants like the HHMI and INBRE grants, faculty members are constantly pursuing individual grants. Individual grants also help fund research and are often used for curriculum development and equipment acquisition. They can range from $50,000 to $250,000.
According to McEwen, applying for such grants requires a "huge commitment" from faculty and the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations.
"Our faculty has been very successful in competing for these grants," McEwen said.
McEwen also said that writing grant proposals is a major activity for faculty members, but that the payoff for both students and faculty is far-reaching.
Over the next few years students will hopefully see the benefits of the HHMI and INBRE grants in lab, class, and over the summers. According to McEwen, over the next five years it will be "a whole new world" for science students.