LEoPARD awarded Faculty Development Committee-Expense Defrayment Grant by Saint Michael’s College

The Laboratory for Evaluation of Pharmacological Agents in Remediation of Disease (LEoPARD) at Saint Michael’s College is honoured to announce that it has received a $2,500 Faculty Development Committee-Expense Defrayment Grant (at full request/maximal value of the award) from the Dean of the Faculty at the College. The successfully-funded proposal is entitled “Development of an early-warning diagnostic for insulin resistance,” and will be used to advance LEoPARD’s preventive arm of research — which focuses on diagnostics and other measures to slow or prevent the development of insulin resistance. The Expense Defrayment Grant will enable purchase of materials needed to research and develop a novel non-invasive or minimally-invasive test for preliminary stages of the disease.

Since its relaunch at Saint Michael’s College, LEoPARD has earned the following awards and grants from August 2022-present:

• $15,000 startup funds from the College
• $10,000 startup supplement from the Vermont Biomedical Research Network (VBRN)
• $2,000 internal award from the VBRN
• $25,000 Pilot Award from the VBRN
• $2,500 Faculty Development Committee-Expense Defrayment Grant (incumbent)

Overall, these $54,500 in funds have facilitated and will continue to facilitate an enhanced level of undergraduate-driven research at the College for students majoring in Biochemistry, Biology, Chemistry, Health Science, Neuroscience, and others. The funds have enabled the purchase of infrastructure and supplies, will provide stipends for research personnel, and will permit travel and dissemination of results at upcoming conferences. In addition to the funds above, recently, undergraduate Biochemistry majors Jamie Hearn and Jack Macdonald were awarded Trustee Scholar summer fellowships to pursue 8-week research endeavors this summer.

Thank you to the members of the Faculty Development Committee for their consideration.

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Laboratory for Evaluation of Pharmacological Agents in Remediation of Disease (LEoPARD) is a biochemistry-focused undergraduate research group at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, VT (Burlington metro area). We offer transformative, real-world laboratory experiences to ensure that our hard-working students evolve into our successful alumni! Interested students are invited to read about our research, and consider applying to be a member of our group.