OCRID Receives 5.5 million NIH Phase III CoBRE Funding
We are so pleased to announce that the Oklahoma Center for Respiratory and Infectious Diseases (OCRID) has received the Notice of Award for our Phase III CoBRE application. With this award OCRID completes a “firsts” hat-trick at Oklahoma State University (OSU). OCRID was the first CoBRE grant awarded to OSU, the first CoBRE grant moved to Phase II, and finally the first CoBRE grant moved to Phase III. We are excited to continue and expand on all the great opportunities that 10 years of OCRID has brought to Oklahoma.
This new NIH grant provides us another 5 years of funding totaling more than $5.5 million. With this funding, we will be continuing our Pilot Project Grant Program, which provides seed grant funding to generate preliminary data for an extramural research grant application. A Call for (Pilot project) Proposals has already been distributed (for more information click here). Additionally, we will continue to provide our scientific Core Services. New services, new technologies, and new equipment have been or will be added to OCRID cores. Check back on the OCRID webpages for more details on Core capabilities. We will also be continuing our OCRID Activity Series. This series hosts activities every week that include: our seminar series, work-in-progress meetings, journal club meetings, and annual research symposium.
This Phase III grant sees the addition of some exciting new faces and roles within our center. Dr. Tom Oomens will be taking on the new role of OCRID Associate Director. Dr. Rudra Channappanavar will be taking on two new roles within the center. He will be taking on the position of Co-Director for the Animal Models Core (AMC) where he will be responsible for the BSL3 animal models. In addition, pending NIH approval, Dr. Channappanavar will assume the role of Director of the Immunopathology Core (IPC). In administering the IPC, he will be joined by Dr. Alexandra Ford, a board-certified anatomic pathologist who will serve as Co-Director and will handle the pathology components of the IPC. Besides these new appointments, Dr. Jordan Metcalf will continue to serve as OCRID Co-Director, Dr. Myron Hinsdale will continue to serve as Director of the AMC and Dr. Lin Liu will continue at the helm of OCRID and the Molecular Biology Core. Erin Langford-Loftis will continue managing the OCRID office.
Various external and internal advisory committees will provide advice on the center’s administration and development. Our committed External Advisory Committee (Dr. Adolfo Garcia-Sastre, Dr. Kevin Harrod, Dr. Jay Kolls and Dr. Ralph Tripp) will continue providing valuable input and advice. Our Scientific Advisory Committee members ( Dr. Clinton Jones, Dr. Susan Kovats, Dr. Lin Liu, Dr. Jordan Metcalf and Dr. Tom Oomens) will provide mentoring to pilot project leaders. Our Steering Committee will provide guides to the Center’s operation. This committee is composed of core directors, a representative from pilot project leaders and institutional officials: Dr. Vibudutta Awasthi (OUHSC), Dr. Jerry Malayer (OSU) and Dr. Ron Van Den Bussche (OSU).
Thank you to everyone within our center and leadership at participating institutions including OSU, University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation that helped to make this application and our center a success! We look forward to continuing to work with everyone in the next 5 years and to further advance OCRID into “Phase IV”, a sustainable research center of respiratory and infectious diseases.