Biosciences Initiative invests $45M in U-M research

Three ground-breaking LSI projects have been selected to be funded in the first round of investments from the University of Michigan's Biosciences Initiative.

These projects are among the five large projects and four smaller ones, totaling up to $45 million, that will be funded this fiscal year through the presidential initiative, which aims to create globally leading biosciences research programs focused on solving critical problems.

The two large LSI projects are:

• “Expanding Natural Products Drug Discovery at the University of Michigan,” principal investigator David H. Sherman, Life Sciences Institute and College of Pharmacy; co-principal investigator Ashootosh Tripathi, LSI and College of Pharmacy. Sherman has created a unique natural products discovery program based on the collection of about 5,000 microbial strains and the integration of some 40,000 microbial extracts into a high-throughput screening laboratory available to all U-M investigators. The new funding will enable recruitment of three new faculty and create a natural products discovery core laboratory to identify bioactive metabolites. This initiative will also provide the synthetic biology and microbial engineering needed to optimize active compounds as discovery tools and for potential drug development.
• “From Cells to Atoms — The future of Cryo-Electron Microscopy at the University of Michigan,” principal investigators Janet Smith, Melanie Ohi and Michael Cianfrocco of the Life Sciences Institute and the Medical School. Cryo-electron microscopy, which uses electrons to visualize frozen samples, is quickly becoming the go-to technique for structural biologists, and U-M was an early adopter of the technology. The new funding will enable the university to become an international leader in the field and a premiere destination for cryo-EM education. Among other things, the funding will help U-M researchers expand their ability to visualize molecular machines inside intact cells using a developing approach called cryo-electron tomography.

The LSI will also participate in one of the four projects receiving exploratory funding grants of $100,000: “Establishing the U-M re-targeting discovery platform,” principal investigator Jonathan Sexton, Medical School.