National Science Foundation awards $646,168 grant to University of Richmond professor and collaborators to continue brain studies
October 31, 2011
The National Science Foundation has awarded an instrumentation grant of $646,168 to the University of Richmond to support the work of Craig Kinsley, professor of neuroscience, and his and his longtime collaborator, Kelly Lambert, professor and chair of psychology at Randolph-Macon College, who is the co-principal investigator on the grant. Faculty and students at several other institutions will also be able to use the equipment.
The grant, designated for research and training of student researchers, will fund a specialized inverted microscope that can perform laser micro-dissection of minute portions of individual neurons and cells, and then manage their transfer to a suite of related instruments to analyze gene expression patterns. The studies will add to the neuroscientists’ existing behavioral and regional analyses of maternal and paternal brains from a wide variety of species, including humans.
“In the end,” Kinsley said, “we are hopeful that these research tools will enable us to push the understanding of genes, neurons and behavior to new, formerly hidden places.”
Kinsley and Lambert are best known for their work on the effects of pregnancy on the maternal mind. Kinsley earned his Ph.D. from the University of Albany, spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, and has taught at Richmond since 1989. His and Lambert’s research on the neuroscience of the reproductive experience has been featured in Nature, Scientific American and a wide range of other academic journals.
The grant, designated for research and training of student researchers, will fund a specialized inverted microscope that can perform laser micro-dissection of minute portions of individual neurons and cells, and then manage their transfer to a suite of related instruments to analyze gene expression patterns. The studies will add to the neuroscientists’ existing behavioral and regional analyses of maternal and paternal brains from a wide variety of species, including humans.
“In the end,” Kinsley said, “we are hopeful that these research tools will enable us to push the understanding of genes, neurons and behavior to new, formerly hidden places.”
Kinsley and Lambert are best known for their work on the effects of pregnancy on the maternal mind. Kinsley earned his Ph.D. from the University of Albany, spent four years as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, and has taught at Richmond since 1989. His and Lambert’s research on the neuroscience of the reproductive experience has been featured in Nature, Scientific American and a wide range of other academic journals.