On September 20, 2021, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences awarded our department an Academic Research Enhancement Award for Undergraduate-Focused Institutions (AREA) grant. AREA (aka R15) grants “stimulate research at educational institutions that provide baccalaureate and/or advanced degrees for a significant number of the Nation’s research scientists.”

Funds will be used to update Biochemistry courses and for individual graduate and undergraduate research projects in Professor Frick‘s laboratory. In this project, entitled RNA-coupled Coenzymes, students will study how enzymes interact with unusual, recently discovered caps present on a subset of cellular RNA molecules.