By manipulating and studying the behavior of rats and worms, researchers at two Delaware universities hope to learn more about the brains of human babies.
The research projects are just two of several that will be supported through a new five-year, $10.5 million federal grant that enables brain researchers to establish a new Delaware Center for Neuroscience Research on the campus of Delaware State University.
The Dover, Del. HBCU, which enrolls nearly 4,200 students, will serve as the lead institution in the joint project with the University of Delaware.
The new center will not be a physical place per se, but rather a “virtual center” that fosters collaboration among nine researchers from the two Delaware institutions of higher learning, a project official says.
DSU won the competitive grant through a program called the “Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence” — nicknamed COBRE — within the National Institute of General Medical Sciences at the National Institutes of Health.
Securing the grant was an arduous task, according to Dr. Melissa Harrington, the principal investigator of the research grant and director of the center.
The first time DSU submitted a 400-page application in 2009 to get COBRE funding to create the center, NIH rejected it.
