Oklahoma IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence

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Oklahoma's IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence (OK-INBRE) will build capacity to carry out biomedical research by supporting promising new faculty, recruiting students into biomedical careers, sustaining vital core facilities, and performing statewide K-12 outreach through a network of community colleges. The OK-INBRE Network is diverse, comprising two research-intensive institutions, The University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) and the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF), whose primary missions are biomedical research, education and patient care, as well as six primarily undergraduate institutions and four community colleges. The Network includes Oklahoma's only Historically Black College and University, a primarily undergraduate institution with the highest number of Native Americans of any college in the nation, Oklahoma's largest tribal college, and other institutions with large numbers of students from underrepresented groups. The research themes are multi-disciplinary, spanning the fields of Microbiology & Immunology, Cancer, and Developmental Biology. This thematic focus is closely linked with the strategic research plans of the two lead biomedical research-intensive institutions. INBRE will support research in these disciplines by four investigators from the primarily undergraduate institutions and two each from OUHSC and OMRF. The goal of research support through INBRE will be enhancing the opportunity for these promising new investigators to develop independent research programs. Each participating investigator will be expected to develop new external grant applications to support their research projects within 24 months of the commencement of the INBRE grant. In addition, smaller grants for research and equipment will be allocated to the primarily undergraduate institutions through an annual peer reviewed competition. Support for undergraduate students will be provided by summer internships and participation in the faculty research projects. The undergraduate science curriculum at the primarily undergraduate institutions will be reformed to a more multi-disciplinary approach. INBRE will also support a Bioinformatics Core facility at OUHSC. Several accessory cores comprising a network of bioinformatics facilities supporting functional genomics research, and a small animal imaging facility, will be available to INBRE investigators via vouchers for research applications. INBRE support for faculty and student research, curriculum development, core facilities, and K-12 outreach will allow us to continue to build Oklahoma's student pipeline and enhance our efforts to become nationally competitive in biomedical research.