When the Defense Department recently announced the list of projects selected for funding through the Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program, the UAB Center for Exercise Medicine (UCEM) was honored to be among those chosen. The Defense Department will issue 23 of the prestigious awards totaling $162 million over the next five years to academic institutions to perform multidisciplinary basic research.
The Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative program, or MURI, supports research by teams of investigators that intersect more than one traditional science and engineering discipline in order to accelerate research progress, according to Melissa L. Flagg, deputy assistant secretary of defense for research. The highly competitive MURI program complements other DoD basic research efforts that support traditional, single-investigator university research grants by supporting multidisciplinary teams with larger and longer awards in carefully chosen research topics identified for their potential for significant and sustained progress.
Most of the program's efforts involve researchers from multiple academic institutions and academic departments. UCEM director Dr. Marcas Bamman is part of such an investigative team. Bamman along with Dr. Timothy Broderick and Dr. Madhavi Kadakia at Wright State University and Dr. Joseph Ecker at The Salk Institute will explore the link between physical training and epigenetics and will use that understanding to: identify training methodologies that modify epigenetics responses; characterize epigenetic regulation of physiological processes, pathways, and mechanisms associated with moderate and high-intensity physical training; and produce real-time biomarkers of cardiorespiratory and neuromuscular performance that predict physical training outcomes.
The Army Research Office, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and the Office of Naval Research solicited proposals in 21 topics and received a total of 270 white papers, which were followed by 88 proposals. Awards were selected based on merit review by a panel of experts and are for a five-year period subject to availability of appropriations and satisfactory research progress.
View the full list of projects selected for funding here.