Southern Miss CISE Research Team Wins National Award

Fri, 06/25/2010 - 12:00am | By: David Tisdale

Dr. Anthony Bell, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at The University of Southern Mississippi, has been awarded a Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) that works in partnership with Oak Ridge National Research Laboratory.

Powe Awards provide seed money for research by junior faculty at ORAU member institutions. These awards are intended to enrich the research and professional growth of junior faculty and result in new funding opportunities. Bell, who has been part of the Southern Miss faculty since August of last year, is one of 32 recipients of the award that targets faculty in the first two years of a tenure track appointment.

“I was very happy and honored to receive this award,” saidBell, who added that the award money would be used to further his research efforts. A Biloxi, Miss. native, Bell earned his doctorate from New York University and also conducted post-doctoral work at Columbia Medical School in New York and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

“My long-range research goals are geared toward developing peptides as drug molecules,” he said. “Peptides can be viewed as shorter versions or smaller segments of proteins. They are emerging as a new class of drugs based on their ability to bind biological targets such as cell receptors with very high affinity.

“As a result, peptide-based therapeutics are less likely to trigger unintended and, in some cases, detrimental side reactions.”

To learn more about the ORAU faculty research awards visit www.orau.org/media-center/news-releases/2010/fy10-43-orau-awards-powe-grants.aspx