UCI gets $24 million in grants

Research efforts in breast cancer, the effects of traffic pollution and prenatal stress are some of the recipients of nearly $24 million in federal stimulus grants given to UC Irvine to date.

In total, $787 billion in economic stimulus funds is being distributed nationwide as part of the national recovery program.

Some of the 76 projects the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will benefit are listed below.

 A math and science recruitment program at the National Science Foundation has awarded nearly $2 million to the school, in hopes of developing successful science and mathematics undergraduate students.

Four faculty members of the school’s math and computer science programs will use the funds to develop a new undergraduate education and research program at UCI, which they will call UCicamp, or the UCI Interdisciplinary Computational and Applied Mathematics Program.

Creators hope the program will use concrete methods to teach math and computational skills to freshmen and sophomores; some students also will do supervised research during the summer and receive a stipend for their efforts, organizers said.

The grant is the first substantial undergraduate education and research grant in the history of UCI’s mathematics department, the school said.

 The National Institutes of Health granted $317,475 to study how certain anti-progesterone compounds may prevent or delay the growth of breast tumors.

 The chairman of anesthesiology and perioperative care at UCI, professor Zeev Kain, will use a $1.7-million National Institutes of Health federal stimulus grant to create a website for parents whose children will be going through surgery.

The site will help parents ease their children’s pre-surgery anxiety, manage post-surgical pain and facilitate healing, the school said.

 Another $300,000 will go toward a study of how atmospheric particles created by traffic pollution affect those with cardiovascular ailments.

Specifically, the particles may accelerate the risk of heart attack and stroke, via oxidative stress in veins and arteries, the study writers said.

 The school’s Women & Children’s Health & Well-Being Project will use $350,000 to research the link between infant and child thinking and behavior with prenatal levels of stress hormones like cortisol.

It is among the first studies in the country to take on the issue on such a large scale, the school said.

 The school’s neurobiology department will use $300,000 to continue its research on the memory effects of nicotine abuse.

 A $135,000 grant will expand global health studies at UCI.

Other projects include the examination of motor function after stroke; vitamin D3 and autoimmunity; and the role of oleoylethanolamide, also known as oleic acid or OEA, in limiting food consumption. The unsaturated fatty acid is commonly used in cooking oil, cosmetics and other products.