UCI receives funds for biological research

UC Irvine has received $14.5 million to do research on biological systems, joining eight other institutions in a nationwide project funded by the National Institutes of Health.

In the study, a multidisciplinary team of 20 scientists will study the human body and other organisms to determine how different biological systems function together.

The planned topics include birth defects, side effects of drugs and the ways bodies produce cells to repair wounds.

Arthur Lander, the chair of UCI’s Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, will spearhead the project, which is the only one of its kind to be held in California. Princeton, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the other universities participating in the study.

“Systems biology asks questions about why things are constructed the way they are, as opposed to simply how they work,” Lander said in a news release. “Focusing on the design principles of large-scale systems is really a cultural change in the way scientists view and conduct biological and biomedical research.”

The study will be done through UCI’s Center for Complex Biological Systems, directed by Lander and established as a research center in 2001.

The center plans to admit its first class of students this year.