Alabama State University’s Department of Biological Sciences collaborated with Auburn University’s School of Pharmacy and received a grant totaling $1,459,000 for the following five years to pursue aging research. ASU will receive $980,000 of the funding, and Auburn will receive $475,000 of funding.

The grant is called “Promotae Diversity in Aging Research,” awarded by the National Institute of Aging at the National Institutes of Health.

Manoj Mishra, Ph.D., will serve as the principal investigator of this project.
According to Mishra, the money at the university will be used for academic support on campus, while the funds awarded to Auburn University will be used for paid summer internships.
“We plan to provide research experiences to our undergraduate students if they are interested in choosing biomedical careers after graduation,” he said. “We have several programs that offer mentoring intervention during freshman year. All these efforts will help build a diverse workforce in the STEM discipline and help in bringing equity to educational practice.”
Mishra said this grant will mainly help undergraduate students, and it will provide professional development activities to the students and faculty.
“The director of the Cancer Biology Research and Training (CBRT) program at the university always looks for avenues to support our undergraduate students in biomedical disciplines. We have worked closely with different partners for many years, and when this opportunity came, we chose Auburn University’s School of Pharmacy for this program,” he said. “The money at ASU will be used to provide 10 research internships during the academic years (fall and spring). Students with a declared major in biology, biology pre-health, psychology, and social sciences (freshmen/sophomore/junior) will be eligible to apply and participate. These students will have guaranteed paid summer internships at Auburn University.”
“We are delighted to have this first-ever grant from the National Institutes of Aging, NIH, on our campus. Apart from helping students, this grant will establish a vibrant research program in the area of aging on the ASU campus,” he said.