Wayne State University President Irvin D. Reid recently announced the awardees from Wayne State’s Research Enhancement Program, a nearly $2.4 million investment designed to strengthen the university’s position as a nationally recognized research institution. It was also created to contribute towards developing research themes for the university that are consistent with an emphasis on its urban mission and global presence.

The program, now in its fifth year, was divided into four sub-programs this year. The sub-programs included:

• Funding for the Center for Urban and African American Health (CUUAH) (completing a three-year commitment);

• Seed grants for projects in the Arts, creative arts research, or research that engages the arts in carrying out the university’s urban research mission (the first year of a three-year commitment);

• Seed grants for research in the Social Sciences and Humanities that address issues affecting women and girls (the first year of a three-year commitment);

• Seed grants for interdisciplinary research in Computational Biology, in part to support the university’s progress toward developing an institutional Clinical and Translational Science Award proposal for the National Institutes of Health.

“Wayne State has great strengths in a number of research areas that ultimately will lead to stimulating our local economy through commercialization and job creation,” said Hilary Ratner, vice president for Research. “This important investment in our faculty will support Michigan in advancing technology in computational biology, the arts, and knowledge involving women and girls in an urban environment. This investment is expected to lead to increased federal funding for Wayne State University and the state of Michigan, and the development of spin-out companies generated from university research,” Ratner added.

All awarded projects are expected to lay the foundation for further study beyond the award end date and will result in external funding appropriate for the field of study. Each program will culminate in a national conference to be held on the Wayne State University campus in order to share the research resulting from this program and ignite further collaboration and generation of ideas.

The award recipients for the 2007 President’s Research Enhancement Program are:

ARTS:

War Culture: Art, Media, and Contemporary War - $20,569
Dora Apel, Art and Art History
This project will analyze and compare the visual constructions of the Vietnam War and the present war in Iraq by examining media images taken by photojournalists, vernacular photos taken by soldiers, and the artistic responses to these public images. It will analyze the ideological structuring and political effects of war imagery, and will also examine the visual culture of resistance and critique of U.S. war policy.

Identity Constructing Reality Constructing Identity - $24,808
Brian Kritzman, Art and Art History
Allen Batteau, Anthropology, Industrial Engineering
Tamara Bray, Anthropology
This project will launch an innovative program of research and training in Design Anthropology, an emerging field that is capturing attention in both the academic and business worlds. The program will build off the industrial strength of Detroit and the city’s legacy of innovation and design.

The Numinous Image in Classical and Late Antiquity - $19,390
Brian Madigan, Art and Art History
Sarah Bassett, Art and Art History
This project will investigate the nature of and relationship between the numinous images, sculptured and painted, that were the focus of religious devotion in the rituals of pagan and Christian worship from c. 1000 B.C. to A.D. 700. It will examine the visual and textual evidence pertinent to these images to understand the ways in which the interrelated cultures of the Greek, Roman and Christian worlds envisioned the divine. It aims to understand religious and visual culture in the ancient world, and create an awareness of the historical context of which many of the modern world’s more pressing cultural and social issues ultimately develop.

The Village School - $15,400
Linda Simmons, Dance
This project will explore, evaluate and refine innovative methods of integrating Detroit’s unique wealth and diversity of art and culture into traditional K–12 curriculum. The classes of participating public schools will provide a laboratory for trial lessons aimed at increasing global awareness through appreciation of the arts within their specific social contexts.

The Detroit/Torino Urban Jazz Project - $26,000
Christopher Collins, Music
This project will capture the common cultural, financial and political challenges and successes of the people and places within Detroit and Torino, Italy to unveil commonalities in both cities, thereby fostering global enlightenment and inspiring cultural comradeship through art, while maintaining the regional individualism of the participating artists.

WPA/DSO Music Scores: Cataloging and Digitization - $17,000
Terese Volk, Music
This project aims to preserve and provide public access through a multi-media website to historic and artistic music scores that were from the depression era in the DSO collection that are largely unavailable for scholarly or performance use.

Raising the Curtain on Classics - $11,560
Mary Cooney, Theatre
Gina DeBlase, Teacher Education
This project will provide a theatre experience for 120 Detroit Public School students by providing a play-going experience coupled with interactive classroom drama to develop students’ ability to comprehend, interpret, evaluate and appreciate the relevance of two theatre productions.

SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES: WOMEN AND GIRLS

Cinematic Senegal (in conjunction with Arts) - $30,001
Juanita Anderson, Communication
This project will develop a one-hour documentary that will explore the relationship between Senegalese filmmakers, their films and the world in which they create. It is designed for international exhibition and for educational distribution to institutions and organizations engaged in the teaching and study of African Cinema.

Grlz-2-Women, Women-2-Grlz: A Gender Literacy Outreach Program for Middle-School Girls - $34,000
Frances Ranney, English
Gwen Gorzelsky, English
This project will establish a literacy program for Latina middle-school girls, a population that is often discouraged by families to achieve academically and from pursuing higher education, in an after-school program at a Detroit community organization. It will also instruct the girls in conducting and writing about research on career options for women.

Nobody\'s Burden: Historical and Critical Perspectives on Women’s Search for Social Security – $40,633
Ruth Ray, English
In this project, Ray will write a book to address how might the history of women’s lives before the passage of the Social Security Act inform today’s debates on Social Security reform.

Menopause and Spinal Cord Injury: A Pilot Study of Women at Mid-Life - $50,000
Cathy Lysack, Institute of Gerontology and Occupational Therapy
Heather Dillaway, Sociology
Janice Schwartz, Physiology
This project will do an in-depth qualitative study to discover and describe empirically the actual topics of concern that women with spinal cord injury discuss when evaluating their own midlife reproductive health and related health promoting behaviors. It will illuminate women’s health beliefs and practices that, over time, may have a profound impact on this physiologically compromised population.

Women Usher in Waves of Change in the Arabian Gulf - $50,000
May Seikaly, Near Eastern and Asian Studies
This project will investigate the social history of the Arabian Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar and the UAE (Dubai) through the lens of women’s experience and agency. It will review social change, concepts of gender discourse and regional transformation during the last twenty-five years.

COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY:

NeMo: A Network Modeling Server for Biological Pathway Analysis - $245,648
Alan Dombkowski, Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Hasan Jamil, Computer Science
Paul Stemmer, Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Raymond Novak, Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
This project will develop a network modeling system comprised of a high-throughput genomic and proteomic database and associated computational tools to enable predictions of cellular networks, used for capturing data and models for one of the most important signaling pathways in biomedical research: PI3K/Akt/mTOR pathway.

Computation Approaches to Identify Human Disease Genes - $177,669
Russell Finley, Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics
Farshad Fotouhi, Computer Science
Gerard Tromp, Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics
Hasan Jamil, Computer Science
Derek Wildman, Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics
This project will develop and use computational approaches to identify genes involved in human diseases, an important step in understanding pathogenic mechanisms and developing effective diagnostics, treatments and preventive measures.

A Computational Enzymology Initiative at Wayne State University - $231,475
Domenico Gatti, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Brian Edwards, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
H. Bernard Schlegel, Chemistry
This project will develop a strong research and educational program in Computational Enzymology, focused on the use of quantum mechanics, molecular mechanics methods and normal mode analysis to elucidate catalytic mechanism of enzymes starting from the knowledge of their atomic structures.

A Multidisciplinary Strategy to Identify Matrix Attachment Regions (MARS) - $217,259
Stephen Krawetz, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, Institute for Scientific Computing
Randall Armant, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Anatomy and Cell Biology
Henry Heng, Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics
Shiyong Lu, Computer Science
This project will bring together wet-bench and in silico strategies and technologies to understand nuclear organization and genomic regulation.

A Computational Model of Human Epilepsy - $292,609
Jeffrey Loeb, Neurology, Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics
Aashit Shah, Neurology
Craig Watson, Neurology
Darren Fuerst, Neurology
Matthew Galloway, Psychiatry and Anesthesiology
Jiani Hu, Radiology
Sandeep Mittal, Neurosurgery
Shiyong Lu, Computer Science
Jing Hua, Computer Science
Farshad Fatouhi, Computer Science
This project will develop a bioinformatics workflow for human epilepsy, focusing on one of the most complex human diseases in the most complex human tissue the brain.

Engineering Computational Simulation of Membrane Fusion at the Atomic Level - $333,423
Charles Manke, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science
Bhanu Jena, Physiology
Jeffrey Potoff, Chemical Engineering and Material Science
This project aims to understand membrane fusion at the atomic level in real time that will provide a fundamental understanding of membrane fusion in cells, which will lead to an understanding of basic physiological processes such as neurotransmission, digestion and hormone secretion, and enable the design and development of biosensors, drugs and drug delivery systems.

Wayne State University is one of the nation’s pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world.