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Five research projects receive seed funding
By SUE WUETCHER
Reporter Editor
Five research teams have been awarded seed grants in the latest round of funding from the UB 2020 Interdisciplinary Research Development Fund (IRDF).
The IRDF is one of several new programs created last fall by Jose V. José, vice president for research, to encourage and enable increased research and scholarly activity among university faculty and staff.
The goal of the IRDF is to encourage collaboration among faculty across disciplines for new research projects that ultimately will attract external grant support. Proposals must be within the 10 areas of strategic strength identified by the UB 2020 strategic planning process.
The projects receiving funding during the May funding cycle are:
"Intermedia Performance Studio": Sarah Bay-Cheng, Theatre and Dance/Media Study, principal investigator; Dave Pape, Media Study; Josephine Anstey, Media Study; and Stuart Shapiro, Computer Science and Engineering, co-investigators. The project will create a proof-of-concept Intermedia Performance Studio (IPS)—an interactive space designed to bring media artists, computer scientists and performers together in performance-based collaborations—in order to solicit external funding for a permanent IPS that will serve as a local and regional resource. The IPS would support projects that explore the integration of real and computer-controlled characters, and the collective impact of performances as both an embodied experience—a live audience watching live actors perform—and as a virtual performance—a remote audience watching computer-manipulated actors and human-manipulated avatars on screens.
"Drug War Casualties Come Home": Robert Granfield, Sociology, principal investigator; Sarah Elder, Media Study; Teresa Miller, Law; Thomas Nochajski, Social Work; and Peter St. Jean, Sociology, co-investigators. This project will investigate how formerly incarcerated individuals develop effective pathways out of drug use, drug addiction and drug trafficking. The researchers plan to develop an intervention strategy for the healthy reintegration of offenders back into their communities.
"A Systems Biology Approach in High-Value Chemical Biosynthesis": Mattheos Koffas, Chemical and Biological Engineering, principal investigator; Ismael Regis de Farias Jr., Industrial and Systems Engineering, co-investigator. The goal of the project is to develop a method of making microbial biosynthesis a more cost-competitive way of producing chemical compounds by increasing the yield of the product.
"Diagnostic Markers of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD)": Maurizio Trevisan, Social and Preventive Medicine, principal investigator; Saverio Stranges, Social and Preventive Medicine; Alan Hutson, Biostatistics; Jihnhee Yu, Biostatistics; Gian Paolo Visentin, Pediatrics; Susan S. Baker, Pediatrics; and Thomas C. Mahl, Medicine, co-investigators. The project aims to identify potential noninvasive diagnostic markers for NADFLD, a condition that's increasingly recognized as a cause of chronic liver disease in the U.S. The condition currently is diagnosed with a liver biopsy.
"The Health Buzz: A Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Food Consumption": Minakshi Trivedi, Marketing, principal investigator; Sharmistha Bagchi-Sen, Geography; Maurizio Trevisan, Social and Preventive Medicine; and Jo Freudenheim, Social and Preventive Medicine, co-investigators. The objectives of this study are to evaluate geographic patterns of healthy food consumption during the past three to four years in the Buffalo metro area and to analyze the relationship of consumption with socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the neighborhoods. Policy implications pertaining to the link among health consciousness, marketing trends of food companies and grocers, and consumer behavior also will be examined.