05/03/94

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Dean of Research Office announces 1994 OTL Research Incentive Fund Award winners

STANFORD -- With funds gained from the royalties on Stanford licenses and patents, seed grants totaling $542,000 have been awarded to 23 Stanford research teams, Dean of Research Charles Kruger announced last month.

Projects winning OTL Research Incentive Fund awards, with the acronym> were chosen by a team of junior faculty members, from a field of 81 grant proposals. Most of the grants went to promising projects in the startup phase, in which researchers test ideas that may later qualify for major grants from government or industry. The fund also provided equipment grants for startup and instrumentation in 11 research laboratories.

The OTL Research Incentive Fund is replenished yearly with earnings from licenses and patents on inventions by Stanford faculty members. Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing draws 15 percent of university royalties each year to cover operating expenses. The earnings fluctuate from year to year as new licenses are added and old ones expire, so each year part of the excess after operating expenses is deposited to a contingency fund for lean years.

The remainder is given to the Office of the Dean of Research to be distributed as Research Incentive Funds. Last year, that amount totaled more than $1.1 million; part was used for equipment grants for new and expanded faculty laboratory facilities, and part for seed grants to support promising new research.

Among the equipment awards was $112,242 to Paul Berg and the Beckman Center Program in Molecular and Genetic Medicine, to help fund a molecular modeling laboratory. George Homsy and Curtis Frank, professors of chemical engineering, were granted $125,000 for surface science instrumentation; Garrison Fathman, professor of medicine, $15,000 toward high-speed centrifuge equipment; the Center for Integrated Systems, $30,000 for fume hoods and related equipment; and the School of Earth Sciences, $100,000 toward an electron microprobe.

Some faculty members received start-up funds for new laboratories and facilities, including Phyllis Gardner, assistant professor of molecular pharmacology, $25,000, and Thomas Kenny, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, $30,000. Some departments also received start-up funds to support new projects and new faculty members: Aeronautics and Astronautics, $22,500; Mechanical Engineering, $30,000; Physics, $80,000; Psychology, $45,000.

The following projects won Incentive Fund seed grants:

. Edward Alfrey and Garrison Fathman, Department of Surgery, $25,000; "Strategies for Immune Tolerance in Monkeys."

. Ann Bolger, Cardiovascular Medicine, $24,400; "Distortion of Normal Intraventricular Flow by Mitral Valve Prostheses."

. Mark Cappelli, Mechanical Engineering, $25,715; "CVD Diamond Micromachines."

. Deborah Gordon, Biological Sciences, $22,700; "Searching Behavior and Encounter Patterns in Patrolling Ants."

. David Grusky, Sociology, $11,894; "The Social Mobility of Women."

. Kasturi Haldar, Microbiology and Immunology, $25,700; "Sphingomyelin Biosynthesis in the Apicomplexan Parasites Plasmodium falciparum and Toxoplasma gondii."

. David Heeger, Psychology, $36,302; "The Neural Basis of Perceptual Appearance."

. Onsi Kamel, Pathology, $32,000; "Clonal VDJ Recombination in Hodgkin's Disease."

. James Ketelaar, History, $4,000; "A Preposterous History of Japan's Northern Frontier."

. Gordon Kino, Electrical Engineering, $34,738; "A 1mm Diameter Microscope for Medical Applications."

. Wilbur Knorr, Philosophy, $4,650; "Medieval Astronomy Books: Their Makers and Users."

. Mark Krasnow, Biochemistry, $25,000; "A Methodology for Isolating and Immortalizing Embryonic Cells of the Fruit Fly Drosophila."

. Daria Mochly-Rosen, Molecular Pharmacology; $25,145; "Agonists and Antagonists of Protein Kinase C Derived from RACKs."

. Rajeev Motwani, Computer Science, $25,493; "Solving Unstructured Problems on Parallel Computers."

. Garry Nolan, Molecular Pharmacology, $21,000; "Retroviral Peptide Libraries as Transdominant Effectors of Molecular Signal Transduction Pathways."

. Oyekunle Olukotun, Electrical Engineering, $28,146; "Multiscalar Architectures."

. Scott Rozelle and Pan Yotopoulos, Food Research, $25,763; "Sequencing Industrial Investment and Development Success: An Empirical Inquiry into the Case of China."

. Tim Stearns, Biological Sciences, $23,070; "Fluorescence Tagging: A Universal Method for in vivo Protein Labeling."

. Charles Steele, Mechanical Engineering, $26,155; "Mechanical Response Noninvasive Determination of Intracranial and Intraorgan Pressure."

. Dale Umetsu, Pediatrics, $25,000; "Manipulation of Cytokine Profiles of CD4+ T Cells with Fusion Proteins That Induce Interleukin-12."

. Shan Wang, Electrical Engineering, $30,000; "Novel MR Head Process and GMR Materials."

. Robert Warrior, English, $14,000; "Changes in the American Indian World, 1960-1975."

. Shoucheng Zhang, Physics, $26,583; "Hall Insulator: Understanding a New State of Matter."

The awards committee consisted of 10 assistant professors nominated by their deans. They were Dorsey Bass, assistant professor of pediatrics; Gregory Beroza, assistant professor of geophysics; Linda Boxer, assistant professor of medicine and hematology; Rona Giffard, assistant professor of anesthesia; Deborah Gordon, assistant professor of biological sciences; P.J. Ivanhoe, assistant professor of philosophy; Sanjiva Lele, assistant professor of mechanical engineering; Dwight Nishimura, assistant professor of electrical engineering; Joel Podolny, assistant professor of business; and Bill Weis, assistant professor of cell biology.

Also serving on the committee were Charles Kruger, vice provost and dean of research; Patricia Devaney, associate dean of research; and George Dekker, associate dean of research for graduate policy.

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