Mizzou Advantage is a long-term initiative to build MU’s stature and impact by indentifying its top five competitive assets and capitalizing on those strengths. Last week, Provost Brian Foster announced the first round in an ongoing series of grants that are meant to build networks or strengthen relationships and to provide seed money to build capacity for significant projects in the future.
Funding for the first round of grants totaled $913,410. Proposals for a second round of grants will be requested next month; and Foster has pledged $1.5 million for the next round.
The campus will highlight MU’s progress on the Mizzou Advantage initiative with a celebration from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 11, in the Reynolds Alumni Center ballroom. The event is open to the campus community.
The first round of grants were awarded to:
- A 21st century program in cancer research: Targeting metastatic cancer cells to improve diagnosis and therapy — John Viator, Scott Holan, Mark Hannink, Paul Dale and Stephen Alexander
- Metagenomics use at a former coal mining environment to bio-prospect for enzymes with applications to sustainable energy — Gary Stacey, Melanie Mormile
- Modeling childhood/adolescent obesity in a pig — Frank Booth, Jamal Ibdah, James Perfield and Cuihua Zhang
- Bioenergy plantations: An integral part in the sustainability of the biomass supply chain — John Dwyer, Shibu Jose, Gary Stacey, Francisco Aguilar, Hank Stelzer, Gene Garrett, Greg Coffin, Paul Hoemann, Dusy Walter, Felix Fritschi, Mark Coggeshall and Jim Houx
- The architecture of collaboration: Defining networks, developing methods — Jack Schultz, Kate Anderson, Mary Barile, Bill Bondeson, Roger Gafke, Jeni Hart, Linsday Leonhard, Tim Matisziw, Yi Shang, Chi-Ren Shyu, Douglas Steinley, John Wedman, Randall Westgren
- Biomass supplies in the U.S. Midwest: An integrated geospatial assessment of environmental and economic impacts — Ciuzhen (Susan) Wang
- Cancer drug development center automated radiopharmaceutical technology — Timothy Hoffman
- Clinical interaction between stress, diet, genetics and inflammation in the etiology of autism — David Beversdorf, Matthew Will and Kevin Fritsche
- International conference: Corporate governance: The role of the board of directors in understanding and managing disruptive and transformational technologies — Elaine Mauldin and Karen Schnatterly
- Opportunistic discovery of information — Sanda Erdelez, Guilherme DeSouza, Chi-Ren Shyu, Antonie Stam and Kevin Wise
- Targeting plasminogen activator inhibitor-l to inhibit neointimal hyperplasia — William Fay, Mayank Mittal and Douglas Bowles
- Whole genome sequencing of an animal model of cerebral cortical dysplasia: Developing the next generation of genomics for human and animal health — Dennis O’Brien
- Early breast cancer detection using novel optical imaging techniques — Ping Yu
- Developing and validating emission models for commercial swine finishing barns — Teng Lim, Albert Heber and Jiqin Ni
- Realistic decision-making — Ann Bettencourt, David Mandy and Andrew Melnyk
- The dark archives project — Denice Adkins, Kate Anderson, Brian Brooks, John Budd, Dorothy Carner, Stephanie Craft, Charles Davis, Debra Mason, Earnest Perry, Richard Reuben and Lilliard Richardson
- A symposium on building networks for the Center for Translational Neuroscience — Douglas Anthony
- Food and society speaker series — LuAnne Roth
- Symposium and faculty workshop on integrin signaling in physiology and disease — Anand Chandrasekhar, Michael Hill, James Lee, Gerald Meininger, Sharon Stack and Gary Weisman
- One health, one medicine, one community network — Karen Edison
- Proposal to establish evolutionary studies and science studies on campus — Stefani Engelstein, Heidi Appel, Andre Ariew, Noah Heringman and Mark Smith
- Regional symposium on molecular biophysics: Single-molecule analysis of macromolecules — Gerald Hazelbauer, John Tanner, Kevin Gillis, Stefan Sarafianos, Gavin King and Thomas Quinn
- Print for the people — Devoney Looser, Berkely Hudson and Michael Holland
- Mizzou Advantage in reproduction biology — Matt Lucy and Randy Prather
- Food, fuel and society — Janet Saidi, Bill Allen, Steve Borgelt, David Brune, Mike Dunn, Mary Henderickson, Marc Linit, Domingo Martinez, Mike McKean, Frank Morris, Keith Politte, Pat Westhoff and Handy Williamson
- Communication markets — Esther Thorson and Murali Mantrala