The 2017 Northeast Regional IDeA Conference (NERIC) will take place in Burlington, Vermont Wednesday-Friday, August 16-18, 2017.  The meeting will begin the evening of August 16 and finish by noon on August 18. Venue: Sheraton Hotel Burlington (http://www.sheratonburlington.com). More information and to register: http://neric2017.org    

The 44th Annual Maine Biological and Biomedical Sciences Symposium (MBMSS) is a state-wide gathering of scientists and students—an opportunity to share research results, exchange ideas, promote collaboration, and network with Maine scientists in a variety of disciplines. Register and/or submit abstracts on the MBMSS conference website. Keynote Speaker: Martin Pera, Ph.D., Professor, The Jackson Laboratory Abstract submission…

Dr. Francis Collins, the Director of the National Institutes of Health, wrote about Maine’s IDeA-funded investigator Dr. Sandra Rieger in a recent blog post: Cool Videos: Regenerating Nerve Fibers. Dr. Rieger came to Maine to conduct her research on research on nerve regeneration in zebrafish supported by the INBRE program and is currently a faculty member at…

Bates College assistant professor Jason Castro was awarded an early career grant (CAREER) of $720,000 by the National Science Foundation (NSF) starting in May 2016. This prestigious accomplishment is the first ever CAREER grant awarded to a Bates faculty member. Castro and his students at Bates are developing computational techniques for researching the organization of the olfactory bulb…

Maine INBRE has increased the amount of its small grant awards to support use of core facility services in Maine to $2,500 per award. Funds are awarded for biomedical research projects and on a competitive basis. Funds must be spent by the end of the fiscal year (April 30, 2017) and cannot be carried over. Please…

Two MDI Biological Laboratory scientists and former INBRE Investigators have reported significant research discoveries this year. Assistant Professor Sandra Rieger, PhD, began her Maine-based research with INBRE funding in 2011, and Bates College graduate and Assistant Professor Voot Yin, PhD, returned to Maine in 2010 after his doctoral training and postdoctoral research with the support of INBRE funding.…

INBRE fellow and undergraduate at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Weronika Grabowska, contributed to a paper with researchers at the Jackson Laboratory that has been published by PLOS Biology journal. Grabowska is listed as a co-author on the paper, which focuses on the connection between aging, exercise, and cognitive decline. Grabowska’s work at the Jackson Lab is…

Current INBRE Investigator Tariq Ahmad, PhD, has been granted tenure at Colby College. The Ahmad Lab studies the effects of mutations associated with neurodegenerative diseases, like frontotemporal dementia, on sleep-wake cycle, using fruit flies as a model system. Dr. Ahmad has been part of the Maine INBRE program since May 2014. More details about his INBRE project…

Bates’ Chemistry professor Paula Schlax, Ph.D., was awarded a $345,000 NIH grant to study the genetics of the bacteria that cause Lyme disease. The grant will include student research support for Bates’ undergraduates. Schlax started working with the bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, when she received funding through Maine INBRE in 2009. The Maine INBRE award allowed her to focus on…

View editorial: “World-class science” (October 2, 2015)