Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.
Historically Black North Carolina A&T State University is participating in a $1.8 million grant program funded by the National Science Foundation that will investigate the effects of 6-shogaol, a biologically active component of ginger extract, and its bioactive metabolites and derivatives, on relaxing the smooth muscle found in the human airway. The research hopes to develop a new medicine for asthmatics.
Florida A&M University, a historically Black educational institution in Tallahassee, received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation aimed at improving the success and retention rates of undergraduate engineering students at the university. The grant provides multi-year scholarships for more than 40 students over the next five years. The program is under the direction of Charmane Caldwell, the director of Student Access at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering. Dr. Caldwell notes that “the idea is to introduce students to different engineering tracks based on their interests and to fund their passion with scholarships that allow them to focus on their studies.”
A research team led by biochemists at the University of California, Riverside, has received a four-year, $1.2 grant from the National Institutes of Health to study breast cancer and the racial disparities in the treatment of the disease. One of two projects funded by the grant will focus on triple-negative breast cancer, which is more prevalent in Black women.
