FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT: Bob Ludwig

June 11, 2002

(202) 994-3566; bludwig@gwu.edu

GW RECEIVES $1.7 MILLION GRANT FROM HOWARD HUGHES MEDICAL INSTITUTE FOR UNDERGRADUATE BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES PROGRAMS

Funding to Support Initiatives in Emerging Fields Such as Bioinformatics
and Computational Molecular Biology

 

WASHINGTON – The George Washington University has been awarded a $1.7 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to support the University’s undergraduate biological sciences programs in innovative areas such as bioinformatics and computational molecular biology as well as a new partnership with the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR). GW is one of only 44 research universities to be awarded the grant and is also one of only four institutions that are first-time recipients.

 

“One of the key focal points of our recent University-wide strategic planning effort has been to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration in education and research with undergraduate education as the centerpiece,” said Donald R. Lehman, vice president for academic affairs at GW.  “The Howard Hughes Medical Institute support of our effort to meld together education in undergraduate biology courses and training in the use of increasingly complex computational methods is a major step towards realizing one, powerful example of interdisciplinary collaboration.  I expect this endeavor to have spillover impacts outside the normal academic undertakings, for example, in special summer programs and student involvement in special research projects.”

 

The grant will help shape GW’s undergraduate program by bringing together the strengths of three separate academic units: the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the School of Medicine and Health Sciences. The goal of the program is to prepare biology and computer science students to work together as leaders in post-genomic science.  Students from both disciplines will share classes and research projects.


Additionally, the grant will allow GW to create a new computational molecular biology concentration in the Department of Biological Sciences that includes specific training in computer science, and will strengthen the new engineering concentration in bioinformatics.  It will also establish a permanent channel for interaction with medical research faculty for undergraduates in both the life sciences and computer science. Faculty from all three areas will participate in a continuing seminar focused on computational techniques.

 

Specifically, GW will expand student research opportunities and broaden access to science.  A new interdisciplinary undergraduate research course will be created for biology, biochemistry, and computer science students.  Student teams will work together with researchers to solve analytic questions from TIGR’s lab, and from research facilities at Children’s National Medical Center and Holland Laboratories (these organizations have existing relationships with GW’s medical school for graduate research and research training.)

 

As part of the project, GW also hopes to work with about 45 community college faculty in the area of computational biology, helping strengthen biology programs, and preparing qualified students for the Washington area’s large biotechnology industry.


“Biology is progressing so rapidly and interfacing with so many other disciplines that undergraduate teaching runs the risk of substituting quantity for quality,” says Howard Hughes President Thomas R. Cech, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist. “Through these grants, the Institute is providing resources to help universities bring their undergraduate science teaching up to the level of their research programs.”


“We believe that one of the most important goals of this project is to change the culture of learning at GW by building bridges between the Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Computer Science as we educate the next generation of scientists,” said Prof. Robert Donaldson, chair of the Department of Biological Sciences.  Donaldson will serve with Profs. Randall Packer and Rahul Simha as co-directors of the grant.

 

This is the 10th round of HHMI grants to enhance undergraduate science education and the 5th competition targeting research universities. Since 1988, the Institute has awarded $556 million to 236 colleges and universities in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

 

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a medical research organization whose principal mission is biomedical research. HHMI employs 336 Hughes investigators who conduct basic medical research in HHMI laboratories at 70 medical centers and universities nationwide. Through its complementary grants program, the Institute supports science education in the United States and a select group of biomedical scientists abroad.

 

To see the Howard Hughes Medical Institute announcement about the grant,
please go to www.hhmi.org/news/070902.htm.

Visit GW on the web at www.gwu.edu.

-- GW --