October 29, 2007
Lyon College News Bureau
Lyon research project led by Dr. Beckford receives $107,000 grant from INBRE
The research being conducted by a Lyon College chemistry professor may one day help battle cancer, and the Arkansas INBRE program has awarded his work a grant totaling more than $100,000.
Dr. Floyd Beckford, associate professor of chemistry at Lyon, said the aim of the research, in the long term, is to synthesize and examine the biological activity of inorganic complexes.
The formal title of the grant proposal is “Anticancer thiosemicarbazone complexes of ruthenium and copper - synthesis, biochemistry, and cellular mechanisms targeting nucliec acids.”
“In particular we are interested in seeing if there is any anticancer activity of the compounds we make,” he said. “To this end, I will be partnering with Dr. Barry Gehm on campus here, as well as a collaborator at UAMS.”
A potential spin-off of this is to investigate the anti-microbial properties of the compounds, Beckford added.
The project was funded by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), under the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the Arkansas INBRE program to the extent of $107, 097 for the first year.
The IDeA program was established for the purpose of broadening the geographic distribution of NIH funding for biomedical and behavioral research. Currently NCRR supports INBRE programs in 23 states and Puerto Rico.
Dr. Floyd Beckford