Jeffress Trusts Award Grants to Five University of Richmond Professors
December 12, 2005
The Thomas F. Jeffress and Kate Miller Jeffress Memorial Trust has awarded five University of Richmond professors grants totaling $75,000 to support faculty and student research in 2006.
Carol A. Parish, associate professor of chemistry, was awarded a $25,000 grant. C. Wade Downey, assistant professor of chemistry, was awarded a $20,000 grant. Receiving $10,000 renewal grants were Jonathan D. Dattelbaum, assistant professor of chemistry; Gary P. Radice, associate professor of biology; and John M. Warrick, assistant professor of biology.
Parish’s grant is for her research into potential anti-cancer warhead drugs. Downey is working with new chemical reactions that potentially could make it easier for the pharmaceutical industry to discover new drugs or more efficiently produce existing drugs.
Radice is studying lymphatic hearts in amphibians, birds and reptiles. Humans don’t have these tiny hearts, but Radice’s research may have implications for human stem cell research.
Dattelbaum is developing new ways of studying glutamate, an important neurotransmitter in the human brain. Glutamate has implications in such diseases as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s.
Warrick's research is examining Machado-Joseph disease, a neurodegenerative disease in the same family as Huntington’s disease. Working with laboratory fruit flies, he is looking into ways to slow down or stop the disease’s progress at the genetic level.
The Thomas F. Jeffress and Kate Miller Jeffress Memorial Trust was established under the will of. Robert M. Jeffress, a Richmond business executive and philanthropist.