HUC BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM

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The HUC Biomedical Research Improvement Program has served as the most important source of coordinated efforts between investigators, students and college administration in developing biomedical research at the Humacao University College. The project started with the participation of Chemistry faculty and is expanding to other areas such as Biology and Physics. The purpose of the project is to promote faculty and student participants into the biomedical research mainstream. The program has stimulated the creation and improvement of the administrative and physical infrastructure needed for research. It has also served to provide the needed infrastructure to back up other future projects sponsored by NIH and other agencies. Peer reviewed publications and faculty and student presentations at scientific meetings are and will be possible through the development of this program. Undergraduate science students are involved in biomedical research with the purpose of preparing them for graduate school and stimulate in them the desire to pursue biomedical research careers. This renewal application involves sever (7) biomedical subprojects. Five (5) of these are in the Chemistry, one (1) in the Physiology and another in the Physics area. One of the Chemistry subprojects is intended to explain the mechanism involved in the vascular effects potentiated by vanadium-containing ions. Another chemistry subproject is aimed to determine possible chemical processes that might explain the protective roles of certain fatty acids in certain tumor and cancer initiation processes. A third chemistry subproject will continue to develop new and general methods for the synthesis of amines as applied to the synthesis of drugs with potential neurological activity. A fourth chemistry subproject will deal with the determination of the interrelated roles of internal stability and environment in defining the actual reactivity of semiquinones in electron transfer reactions and lipid peroxidation. A fifth chemistry subproject is aimed to understand the relationship between the structure of phenothiazine derivated, their photochemistry and the phototoxic side-effects exhibited by these drugs. A Physiology subproject will investigate the influence of substance P and acetylcholine in the mucociliary activities of the frog palate 'in vivo' and in outgrowths as a model to understand the role of these substances in humans. A subproject in the area of Biophysics will study the effects of high frequency fields on Magnetic Resonance Imaging quality including the development of a software that corrects the effects of field in homogeneity.