FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          

For more information, contact:

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Sheila Champlin – (901) 448-4957, schampli@uthsc.edu

 

Associate Professor Wei Li of

The University of Tennessee Health Science Center

Receives $325,000 Grant for Drug Discovery Instrument

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            Memphis, Tenn. (May 7, 2012) – Wei Li, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), served as the principal investigator of a grant totaling $325,000 from the Office of the Director, a subsidiary of the National Institutes of Health. The grant will support the purchase of a state-of-the-art quadruple time-of-flight (Q-TOF) high-resolution mass spectrometer.

The instrument will have significantly greater sensitivity than its predecessors and the capability to obtain exact mass for both small and large molecules. Compared with the low-resolution mass spectrometer currently available in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the new mass spectrometer will dramatically reduce the ambiguity of molecular formula for unknown compounds encountered in chemical synthetic intermediates, natural products, or drug metabolites. Twelve members of the faculty in the UT Colleges of Pharmacy and Medicine participated in this shared-instrument grant application by providing short descriptions for their research projects to justify the need for the equipment.

“We are very grateful to the strong institutional support from the College of Pharmacy and the campus administration, which is very important for the success of this grant,” said Dr. Li.  “This is the second NIH shared-instrument grant we obtained recently.  A similar grant was awarded in late 2010 for the purchase of a new 400 megahertz (MHz) NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) system. The addition of the 400 MHz NMR and this new high- resolution mass spectrometer will significantly enhance the research capability provided to investigators across the campus by our shared-instrument facility.”

This instrument will support many extensive small-molecular drug discovery and drug delivery programs for faculty at UTHSC in the areas of cancer, obesity, diabetes, radiation protection, radiation mitigation, bacteria inflection, and inflammation diseases. In addition, local biotechnology companies such as GTx, Inc., and RxBio, Inc., will also benefit from indirect access to this sophisticated instrument through established service contracts with the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases.  For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

As the flagship statewide academic health system, the mission of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) is to bring the benefits of the health sciences to the achievement and maintenance of human health, with a focus on the citizens of Tennessee and the region, by pursuing an integrated program of education, research, clinical care, and public service.  In 2011, UT Health Science Center celebrated its centennial: 100 years advancing the future of health care.  Offering a broad range of postgraduate training opportunities, the main UTHSC campus is located in Memphis and includes six colleges: Allied Health Sciences, Dentistry, Graduate Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy.  The UTHSC campus in Knoxville includes a College of Medicine, College of Pharmacy, and an Allied Health Sciences unit.  In addition, the UTHSC Chattanooga campus includes a College of Medicine and an Allied Health Sciences unit.  Since its founding in 1911, UTHSC has educated and trained more than 53,000 health care professionals on campuses and in health care facilities across the state.  For more information, visit www.uthsc.edu.

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