A research festival designed to provide UB investigators with the tools and information they need to succeed in the competition for external support, as well as highlight state-of-the-art research in the areas of genomics and information technology, will be held May 16-17 in the Student Union, North Campus.

The festival will be presented by the Office of the Vice President for Research, in association with the associate deans for research. A detailed schedule of events is available at http://www.research.buffalo.edu/events/festival/festival.htm.

The focus of the first day of the festival will be on new investigators.

"This is the first of what I'm hoping is going to be an annual event," said Jaylan Turkkan, vice president for research. "This is going to be a celebratory thing, and also a vehicle to transmit actual practical information that new investigators-or people that are simply new at UB-can use."

"We really value new investigators at UB-after all, they're the next generation of researchers here," Turkkan said.

The festival also will provide an opportunity "to reach out to the local business community and link them up with our young researchers and get some excitement going about what we do and what we know," she added.

The first day of the festival will be devoted to practical advice and information for new investigators.

Following welcoming remarks from President William R. Greiner, the morning session, scheduled from 9:30-11 a.m. in the Student Union Theatre and chaired by Turkkan, will feature presentations by representatives from several funding agencies that historically are the largest supporters of UB research. Eleni Kousvelari, chief of the Biomaterials, Biomimetics and Tissue Engineering Branch of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR), will discuss the National Institutes of Health and the Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) programs. Minda Lynch, acting branch chief and program administrator of the Behavioral Sciences Research Branch of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), will discuss NIH career mechanisms. Rajinder P. Khosla, acting director of the Division of Electrical and Communications Systems for the National Science Foundation, will speak on program initiatives and other funding opportunities available through the NSF.

The afternoon session, chaired by Gene Morse, associate dean for clinical education and research, and chair of the Department of Pharmacy Practice in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, will run from 1:30-3:30 p.m. in the Student Union Theatre. It will feature presentations by Matthew Behrmann of the SUNY Research Foundation, "System Priority: Expanding Research/Programming the Benefits," and Bernadette Marriott, vice president for programs and communications for the Burroughs Welcome Foundation, "'Ins and Outs' of Foundations: How the Dollars Get IN and How You Can Get Some OUT for Your Research." In addition, David Mark, UB professor of geography and director of the UB site of the National Center for Geographic Information Analysis, will speak about the NCGIA, which Turkkan called "a model transdiciplinary research center."

The day will conclude with a seminar from 3:30-5:30 p.m. on licensing and patenting conducted by Jerry McGuire, director of the UB Office of Technology Transfer and Licensing. McGuire will advise UB researchers on how to take their ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Between presentations, conference participants will have an opportunity to visit booths illustrating services provided to UB researchers, such as sponsored programs administration; laboratory animal facilities; technology transfer and licensing; opportunities for collaboration with such UB partners as the Hauptman-Woodward Institute, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, and Calspan-UB Research Center (CUBRC), and ongoing research at many of the centers and institutes at UB.

At 5:30 p.m., Greiner and Turkkan will preside at the annual reception and awards ceremony honoring UB faculty members who have received patents during the past year.

The second day of the festival May 17 will spotlight national and UB researchers in the areas of genomics and information technology. Scientific posters highlighting research being done by new UB investigators also will be featured during the day.

Following welcoming remarks by Provost Elizabeth D. Capaldi and state Sens. Mary Lou Rath and William Stachowski, the day will open with a symposium on “Postgenomics and Bioinformatics,” in which visiting scholars will address current and future developments in these fields.

Speaking will be Alastair J.J. Wood of Vanderbilt University, “Will We, Can We, Prescribe by Genotype;” Norman Lee of The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGER), “NHLBI Programs for Genomic Applications: Generation of Microarray Data as a Public Resource,” and Deanna Kroetz of the University of California at San Francisco, “Discovery and Development in the Post-Genomic Era.”

The keynote address, scheduled for 11:15 a.m., will be given by Deanna Church of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) of the National Library of Medicine. The address is titled “The Mouse as the Power Tool of the 21st Century.”

The afternoon symposium on “Information Technology” will feature presentations by John Kenney of Lightwave Microsystems, “Planar Lightwave Circuit: ‘Spectrometer on a Chip;’” Quentin Stout of Michigan University, “Peering into Space: Why We Build Supercomputers,” and Rob Kling of Indiana University, “What is Social Informatics and How does it Matter?”

There is no charge to attend the festival, and advance registration is not required. However, participants wishing to reserve a boxed lunch—the cost of which is $7.50—are asked to use the online registration system. For more information about the research-festival activities, visit http://www.research.buffalo.edu.