Subject: $500,000 from NIH & Vt. Genetics Network
Public Relations Office
Colchester, VT 05439
NEWS
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 28, 2005
Contact:  Buff Lindau
(802) 654-2536
 blindau@smcvt.edu

Five of the 13 student-faculty research projects funded statewide go to Saint Michael's

Saint Michael's receives over $500,000 from National Institutes of Health fund for the
Vermont Genetics Network

Saint Michael's College science students and faculty learned this month that their research
will get a major boost. The college will receive over $500,000 from the National Institutes
of Health fund for the Vermont Genetics Network to be used for five research projects,
laboratory improvements and administrative costs.

Five Saint Michael's junior faculty members are each receiving grants ranging between $50,000
and $55,000 to support research by them and their students for the coming year.

Colchester resident, Dr. Kathleen Mondanaro, associate professor of chemistry, will carry out
research titled "Probing Cross-Cage Interactions in Bicyclo[1.1.1]pentylacetylenes."

Winooski resident, Dr. Bret Findley, assistant professor of chemistry, will perform "Two
Studies Involving Electron Donor-Acceptor Complexes."

South Burlington resident Dr. Declan McCabe, assistant professor of biology, will do research
titled "Competitive and Reproductive 
Characteristics of Invasive and Noninvasive Crayfish."

Richmond resident, Dr. Mark Lubkowitz, assistant professor of biology, will study "The Role
of Oligopeptide Transporters in Seed Development."

Grand Isle resident Dr. Joanna Ellis-Monaghan, assistant professor of mathematics, will study
"Graph Polynomials and DNA Structures."

"Needless to say, this is a tremendous boost for research at the college," said Dr. J. Van
Houten, Leavy Family Professor of Chemistry and Vermont Genetics Network campus coordinator
for Saint Michael's College.  "And it gives our students fantastic opportunities to work with
our faculty during the summer and throughout the academic year."

The college will receive $126,000 to upgrade laboratory space in Cheray Science Hall and
$144,000 for administrative costs and overhead.  That comes to a total of slightly over
$500,000 for Saint Michael's in year one of the VGN grant. Except for the renovation money,
similar amounts will be available on a competitive basis over the next four years.

Five of 13 projects go to Saint Michael's; four to Middlebury College, two to Norwich
University, one each to Johnson State College & Castleton State College.

The Vermont Genetics Network is a statewide organization designed to improve the research
infrastructure at Vermont's colleges and universities that brings together a consortium of
research institutions. With the University of Vermont as lead institution, the baccalaureate
partner institutions--Saint Michael's, Middlebury, Norwich, Johnson and Castleton--submitted
a multi-million dollar, five-year proposal for funding. The first year has been secured, with
13 faculty-student projects at these colleges being funded statewide, five of them at Saint
Michael's College, four at Middlebury, two at Norwich, and one each at Castleton and
Johnson.

Saint Michael's College, founded in 1904 by the Society of St. Edmund and headed by President
Marc A. vanderHeyden, has been identified by U. S. News & World Report for 15 consecutive
years as one of the top15 Master's Universities in the North. A liberal arts Catholic,
residential college, located two miles from the state's largest city of Burlington, Saint
Michael's was recently invited to sponsor a chapter of the prestigious academic honor
society, Phi Beta Kappa, on campus. Saint Michael's has 1,900 full-time undergraduate
students, and some 650 graduate students and 200 international students, studying part time. 
The College was named recently by Newsweek magazine a "Hidden Treasure," one of 30 colleges
recommended most frequently by guidance counselors for being "schools that deserve more
national recognition," and was just chosen to be included in Princeton Review's The Best 361
Colleges: 2006 Edition.