Southern Miss Hosts Annual INBRE Appreciation Luncheon

The University of Southern Mississippi Thad Cochran Center was recently filled with people from all over the campus who assisted the Mississippi IDeA Network of Biomedical Research Excellence (Mississippi INBRE) program over the last year.

The group gathered for the annual Mississippi INBRE “appreciation luncheon” for faculty, staff, and students that have worked and assisted the program in numerous ways.

“All of these people from across campus, from purchasing to catering to procurement to residence life and so many more offices, have worked hard to help us throughout the year,” said Jamie Lott, Mississippi INBRE outreach director. “We wanted to thank them for their assistance in helping our students, faculty and staff on everything from arranging tours of the campus to ordering food for events and setting up rooms for conferences and workshops.”

Lott says the mission of Mississippi INBRE is to enhance the biomedical foundation in Mississippi and to reach out to Mississippians in order to improve health throughout the state. Its presence is currently felt in 23 of the State's 27 primarily undergraduate institutions.

“Our program aims to to engage talented researchers and students in biomedical research projects that will increase the state's research competitiveness as well as impact the health of citizens of Mississippi,” said Lott. “The luncheon provided us the perfect opportunity to express our gratitude to all those who help Mississippi INBRE accomplish our mission”

Jenny Schmidt, associate grants administrator in the Office of Research Administration (ORA), attended the luncheon. “A number of our staff in the ORA office work with the Mississippi INBRE program throughout the year. They do such great work,” said Schmidt. “We were glad to come to the luncheon and see all the other offices that have helped the program throughout the year.”

Mississippi INBRE, directed by Dr. Mohamed Elasri, professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, is a statewide program that is supported by an award from the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences.

Mississippi INBRE provides several services to Mississippi residents including summer internships for undergraduate students in biomedical research and in public health education, access to the latest equipment and technical expertise through the three Mississippi INBRE core facilities and providing research and curriculum development grants to faculty at primarily undergraduate institutions throughout the State.

“Summer internships allow Mississippi INBRE to provide training and job experience to undergraduate students interested in biomedical research or in public health education,” said Lott.

Mississippi INBRE supports three core facilities throughout Mississippi: a genomics core facility at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, an imaging core facility at The University of Southern Mississippi, and a proteomics core facility at Mississippi State University. These facilities provide researchers in Mississippi access to the latest equipment and technical expertise and are available for student education and training

Mississippi INBRE has also built a biomedical research infrastructure by establishing 31 research laboratories at 8 partner undergraduate institutions. The program provides competitive grants for Mississippi faculty for research and curriculum development.

For additional information about the Mississippi INBRE program, visit http://msinbre.org/.