Two West Virginia University faculty members have been awarded mini-grants that will allow them to better prepare larger research proposals.

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission’s Division of Science and Research awarded Research Proposal Mini-Grants of $6,000 each to Bingyun Li, associate professor of orthopaedics, and Joe McFadden, assistant professor of biochemistry and dairy science.

Mini-grants were also awarded to Gifty Osei-Prempeh, of WVU Institute of Technology, a division of WVU, and Gary Schultz and Guo-Zhang Zhu, both of Marshall University.

The grants provide replacement salary for an uninterrupted period of time so that the awarded faculty member may write large research proposals during the summer. Li and McFadden will submit a proposal for funding from an external agency or foundation as a result of obtaining the mini-grant.

Li has received several international awards for his research, which focuses on infection prevention, fracture/wound healing and cellular interaction. He is also director of the Biomaterials, Bioengineering and Nanotechnology Laboratory at the WVU School of Medicine.

McFadden’s research areas include identifying the mechanisms of insulin resistance in lactating dairy cows and developing dairy nutrition and management strategies to improve cow health.

“The Mini-Grant Program is an investment in research and, ultimately, in economic development for our state,” said Dr. Jan Taylor, director of research programs for the Division of Science and Research. “By giving these faculty members the chance to more fully concentrate on writing large external research proposals, the State of West Virginia may ultimately attain benefits that are well beyond this small investment.”

The Research Proposal Mini-Grants are funded by the West Virginia Research Challenge Fund, which lays the foundation for many of the state’s competitive grant programs.

-WVU-

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