Several Wyoming WWAMI faculty for the first-year medical school classes in Laramie will be part of a University of Wyoming interdisciplinary team studying the biological effects of nitric oxide on the human body. The five-year, $6.9 million funding for this effort is the largest National Institutes of Health grant ever received by the University of Wyoming.

Robert Heinzen

The award will establish a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) to support the work of participating scientists.

Robert Heinzen, director for the Wyoming first-year WWAMI medical course, Natural History of Infectious Diseases, will study nitric oxide's effect on bacteria that cause human Q fever and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Shelly Robertson, who teaches in the Natural History of Infectious Diseases course, will investigate nitric oxide in retrovirus-induced central nervous system diseases.

Paul Wade, director for both the Anatomy and Embryology and the Head and Neck System courses, will examine nitric oxide's role in controlling gastrointestinal function and how this changes with age. Scott Boitano, who in the past has lectured in the Cell Physiology course, will look at nitric oxide production in the upper airway and its involvement in the body's natural defenses to keep bacteria, dust and pollutants from reaching the lungs.

The principal investigator is D. Scott Bohle, professor of chemistry at the University of Wyoming.