Dr. Tai Montgomery, Assistant Professor in the Biology Department, was awarded the Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award!

The National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, created a new way of funding science in 2015 that allows researchers the freedom to take on ambitious challenges and approach problems creatively, without many strings.

Three researchers from Colorado State University — Lucas Argueso, Tai Montgomery and Tim Stasevich — are among the 93 scientists across the country who recently received this innovative grant. The new model, Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award, or MIRA, supports scientists’ overall research programs through a single, unified grant.

The total amount received by the CSU team is $5.4 million over the next five years.

Dr. Montgomery’s project is titled, “Mechanism and Function of C. elegans microRNAs in Drug Resistance, Pathogen Defense, Fecundity and Development.” MicroRNAs, which are small, gene regulatory molecules within cells, are thought to have roles in many disease including cancer, as well as in drug resistance and in preventing bacterial and viral infections. Yet their specific functions are still unclear to scientists. Montgomery proposes to illuminate the genes and genetic networks under the control of microRNAs that affect development, drug resistance and pathogen defense. He will use the nematode species C. elegans for an animal model in seeking to understand these processes.

Read the full story on SOURCE here: CSU researchers maximize research through new NIH grants