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ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏStrategic Investment Pool (SIP) Awards

The ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏ Strategic Investment Pool (SIP) Awards, administered through ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏResearch & Innovation, offer tenured/tenure-track and full-time research faculty members the opportunity to apply for strategic investment pool funds. The goal of the SIP awards is to grow the research enterprise at the University of South Florida in alignment with our strategic plan.

ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏResearch & Innovation will continue to support strategic investments through increased funding from the Strategic Investment Pool (SIP fund) and the Research Council Internal Awards program.  Please look for future SIP funding opportunity announcements by the Research Council.

February 2024 funded projects

Following the initial July 2023 round of funding, several projects were slated for a second round of funding, pending additional support.

Having secured additional funding resources from the Provost in February 2024, the following four projects have been selected for the second round of funding.

• Dr. Norma Alcantar, College of Engineering: The new equipment fills a critical need and replaces an atomic force microscope (AFM) acquired in 1994 by the Nanotechnology Research and Education Center (NREC).  Atomic force spectroscopy is a type of scanning probe microscopy with a resolution on the order of a few Angstroms (or fractions of a nanometer), more than 1,000 times better than the optical diffraction limit.  Dr. Alcantar was funded $200,000 toward the new AFM tool, which can illuminate reliable, state-of-the-art structure/property relationships and provide ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏfaculty with the leading-edge infrastructure required to create new materials, develop advanced technologies, and invent devices to produce novel semiconductors, quantum materials, catalysts, superconductors, and more.
  
  
• Dr. Manas Biswal, Taneja College of Pharmacy
  Dr. Biswal’s funding in the amount of $199,882 for an Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) supports translational eye research at USF.  Additionally, it provides a group of vision researchers from three different colleges (Taneja College of Pharmacy, Morsani College of Medicine, and College of Engineering) access to high-quality data for publication and federal grant proposal submission.  With the acquisition of the new OCT, ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏresearchers can utilize a state-of-the-art, non-invasive, real time retinal imaging device to detect and monitor changes of blinding eye diseases in animal models.
  
  
• Dr. Yu Chen, Morsani College of Medicine
  Dr. Chen’s SIP award purchased an SPT Labtech Mosquito Xtal3 system for protein X-ray crystallography, a powerful and important technique to determine protein structures, which provides critical information to understand protein functions and enable structure-based drug discovery.  The SIP grant, in the amount $113,110, made possible the replacement of a 14-year-old system.  The highly precise and efficient Mosquito Xtal3 instrument allows for accurate and reproducible dispensing of nanoliter-scale volumes of liquids, up to 20 times smaller than the current system – an exceptionally valuable feature. The equipment contributes to the ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏstrategic plan by fostering collaborative and innovative biomedical research while facilitating the training of both undergraduate and graduate students.
  
  
• Dr. Aurelie Germa, College of Arts and Sciences: Dr. Germa’s SIP grant for $143,300 enabled the purchase of a Laser system to complement the current Perkin Elmer NexION 2000P Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (ICP-MS). The Laser system is in the Center for Geochemical Analyses (CGA), a USF core facility hosted in the School of Geosciences.  The equipment expands the range of applications of the ICP-MS, particularly to the Volcanology/Geochemistry group, as well as to most of the School of Geosciences, the College of Marine Sciences, and regular ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏand external users of the CGA. This new capability provides cutting-edge analytical services to ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏfaculty, supports the education and research of ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏSTEM students, and enhances development of new methodologies which can lead to novel research avenues for external funding.

2023 Funded Projects

During the spring of 2023, USFRI issued a call for proposals to be evaluated by faculty inclusive of each campus and college and members of the Associate Deans for Research, Research Advisory Committee, and the Research Council.  Multi-PI, multi-department, multi-campus proposals that focus broadly on supporting the facilities and research infrastructure at ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏwere considered for the spring 2023 round of funding.

The following seven projects were selected for funding in July 2023.:

• Dr. Katherine Alfredo, College of Engineering: The equipment will assist in combating excess nutrient inputs to the environment and to provide access to clean water and restore and improve urban infrastructure, positioning ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏresearchers’ capacity for nutrient management in the Tampa Bay region, Florida, nationally, and internationally.
  
  
• Dr. Parveen Bazard, College of Engineering: The equipment will enable Dr. Bazard and his team to combine biomedical engineering and imaging with hearing sciences, animal model techniques, and neuro-engineering to develop clinically relevant theragnostic tools for hearing impaired persons.
  
  
• Dr. Laura Blair, ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏHealth Morsani College of Medicine: The purchase of new high speed and ultra centrifugation systems and rotors provides a mechanism for protein purification, plasmid purification, virus purification, protein solubility, sucrose gradients, and subcellular fractionation, and brings the ºÚÁÏÍø³Ô¹Ï±¬ÁÏHealth Neuroscience Institute into better compliance of modern environmental, health, noise, and safety standards.
  
  
• Dr. Jennifer Bugos, College of The Arts: This equipment enables examination of mechanisms that impact auditory learning and memory retention in childhood language discrimination and acquisition, children/young adults, older adults, rhythmic perception/decision-making, ERP spatial localization, speech/prosodic processing, and music learning.
  
  
• Dr. Gary Daughdrill, College of Arts and Sciences: Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a superior tool for investigating the structure and dynamics proteins and small molecules, which is required for a deep understanding of protein function, the binding of drug candidates to viable targets, and the molecular basis of disease.