UCA News
UCA Faculty Member Leads Team Awarded $700,000 NSF Grant
Posted in Campus Life on August 11, 2009
In late July, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded grant funding in excess of $700,000 to a collaborative Arkansas/New York team led by Dr. Barbara Clancy from the University of Central Arkansas (UCA), Cornell University in New York, the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The grant, which will cover a three year period, will be used to increase the use of contemporary neuroinformatic techniques that will help researchers compare and predict brain development across species, including humans.
The project, which involves the development of a web-based system of data collections on brain development in human and non-human species, will employ researchers and students in neuroscience, evolutionary science, computer science, data mining, mathematics and statistics. Currently, the UCA-initiated web program is the only place where there is a depth of cross species comparative data and can be easily accessed. Over 30,000 researchers and universities worldwide have already accessed the web program and the grant will enable additional use of the database and research on brain development across many species, including human.
Dr. Clancy, an Associate Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at UCA who began developing the web site in 2007, is “amazed at the number of physicians and researchers from across the world already using the web site” and keeps up with the locations on a map in her office. Currently, the work and research at UCA has been in use at institutions such as Harvard, Yale, John Hopkins, and Yale Universities and in countries such as China, France and Australia.
Other researchers involved in the grant include Radha Nagarajan (University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, UAMS), Dan Berleant (University of Arkansas at Little Rock, UALR), Steve Jennings (Executive Director MidSouth Bioinformatics Center (MBC), UALR) and Roger Hall (MBC Technical Director).
The project, which involves the development of a web-based system of data collections on brain development in human and non-human species, will employ researchers and students in neuroscience, evolutionary science, computer science, data mining, mathematics and statistics. Currently, the UCA-initiated web program is the only place where there is a depth of cross species comparative data and can be easily accessed. Over 30,000 researchers and universities worldwide have already accessed the web program and the grant will enable additional use of the database and research on brain development across many species, including human.
Dr. Clancy, an Associate Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at UCA who began developing the web site in 2007, is “amazed at the number of physicians and researchers from across the world already using the web site” and keeps up with the locations on a map in her office. Currently, the work and research at UCA has been in use at institutions such as Harvard, Yale, John Hopkins, and Yale Universities and in countries such as China, France and Australia.
Other researchers involved in the grant include Radha Nagarajan (University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, UAMS), Dan Berleant (University of Arkansas at Little Rock, UALR), Steve Jennings (Executive Director MidSouth Bioinformatics Center (MBC), UALR) and Roger Hall (MBC Technical Director).