NEUROSCIENCES AND BIOINFORMATICS AT HUNTER COLLEGE

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The Center for Study of Gene Structure and Function at Hunter College will continue to focus on conducting research of high quality and recruiting minority scientists and Ph.D. candidates into this enterprise. Hunter can make a special contribution to this National undertaking. We have steadily improved our research activities; some of our laboratories are internationally recognized. Our student body is remarkably diverse, reflecting the racial and ethnic variety of New York City itself. We have recently hired more minority faculty and wish to continue this. Our request includes funds for hiring new faculty in the direct costs budget with an institutional commitment to the construction of their laboratories. Also requested are funds for minority research associates who help our research effort and diversify our staff. A major emphasis in our proposal is to reduce our dependence on RCMI funding over time. Therefore, funding of the positions for faculty and managers of core facilities is structured so that their support from the RCMI budget will be phased out in the later years of the grant. In this framework, full time salaries are requested, for different periods of time, for managers of the Biomolecular Computation and Graphics Facility, the Bio-imaging Facility, and the Mass Spectroscopy Facility. The last two are specially justified in new Research Initiatives of the Departments of Biology and Chemistry. A Biopsychology Research Initiative is also described. The Research Initiatives collectively define areas for faculty recruitment, as well as provide examples of how core facilities supply essential services. We request funds for technical support for these services which are phased out over the grant period. Supplies for these facilities are requested, in annually decreasing amounts. This new proposal contains few major requests for instrumentation. The budget is structured so that current and future institutional contributions are clearly delineated. We continue to see new sources of support outside of the RCMI program. New HIV and AIDS- related projects are presented. These comprise three areas: drug synthesis and mechanism-of-action studies, activation and control of transcription from the HIV LTR, and possible stress effects in the physiology of AIDS dementia. The Chemistry Research Initiative also has clinical - significance for HIV/AIDS in studies of pentamidine, and for cancer research (derivatives of Mitomycin C).