Singh Nets Awards from NIH and NSF

Brij Singh, Ph.D., assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, Grand Forks, has received a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study calcium's multiple, complex roles in human health and disease.

Singh's research involves the study of vital calcium mechanisms in the body that can, when they don't work properly, lead to diseases such as cancer, Parkinson's disease and Sjorgens syndrome, a salivary gland dysfunction.

The former NIH researcher has also received a three-year, $405,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to pursue related research that could define the mechanism and regulation of these channels, which may lead to tools that could quickly, accurately and noninvasively diagnose an individual's chances of getting cancer and other diseases related to calcium signaling dysfunction.

"Everything you do requires calcium," says Singh. "Even something as simple as lifting a pencil requires a very specific calcium balance." If that calcium mechanism gets out of whack, things can go seriously wrong in the body,

he says.

"When the calcium transport channel gets out of balance -- and we're not sure why that happens -- then the body goes into a disease state. That can be Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, heart disease ­ they're all related to a calcium deficiency ­ or cancer, which can result when too much calcium is released."

"The NIH grant is very prestigious and extremely hard to get," says Gene Homandberg,Ph.D., professor and chair of biochemistry, Grand Forks. Singh's RO1 grant was ranked in the 2.5 percentile, a level that "no one in North Dakota has ever gotten."

"It is almost unheard of " for a researcher to obtain awards from both the NIH and the NSF, Homandberg says. "It's a clear testament to the high regard in which Dr. Singh's peers and other NIH and NSF scientists hold his work."

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