Bush OKs $940,000 for BSU Researchers to Study West Nile Virus

By J. Gelband, 11-14-07

What would you do with $940,000? If you are one of the Boise State University researchers who just received $940,000 in federal funding, you are going to use it for researching the West Nile virus vaccine.

On Tuesday, President George Bush signed legislation to authorize the research. In fact, it was U.S. Rep. Bill Sali and U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo who spearheaded the legislation, in part because Idaho was particularly affected by the virus. Last year, 38 Idaho counties reported cases and 23 people died from the virus.

The research team will work with the U.S. Department of Defense to finalize details and move forward with the research. The team is led by Ken Cornell in BSU’s chemistry department and includes biology professors Juliet Tinker, Denise Wingett and Gongxin Yu.

“This is the kind of meaningful work that researchers yearn for,” Cornell said in a statement. “We could literally save lives in this community and there’s nothing more fulfilling for a scientist. But this funding also allows Boise State to build its research infrastructure, which allows us to do more great work and raise the profile of the university. By leveraging funding like this with collaborative interdisciplinary research that has impact in the community, we truly are becoming the metropolitan research university of distinction everyone talks about.”