After last week's $12.5-million cut to Michigan's Life Sciences Corridor, MSU researchers competing for grant money from the program are worried about their research.
The cut, which is part of Gov. Jennifer Granholm's executive order offsetting the state's $158-million general fund deficit, reduced the program's total available grant money to $32.5 million.
"The saddest part about losing the $12.5 million - of course I have a personal interest in it - is it's taking funds from the future of the state of Michigan to pay for a debt," chemistry professor and researcher Marcos Dantus said.
The program is a 20-year initiative to spend the more than $1 billion from the state's 1998 tobacco settlement in promoting the life science industry in Michigan.
Grants are awarded each May and the program is now reviewing proposals from 69 applicants - 10 of whom are affiliated with MSU.
Other applicants competing for grant money include researchers from Wayne State University, the University of Michigan, the Van Andel Research Institute, and Michigan business and organizations.
"How many of those (projects) would get funded, it's hard to tell," said Paul Krepps, a spokesman for the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which administers the life sciences initiative.
"It's too early to tell what specific effects it will have except to say we have less money to work with," Krepps said.
Vincent Young, an assistant professor of medicine applying for $400,000 to study the connection between antibiotics and diarrhea complications, describes the Life Sciences Corridor as a major commitment to large-scale exploratory research in life sciences.
"It gives serious money to people who are starting new things in new directions," he said.
Before the $12.5-million cut, the top third of grant applications were funded, but now only the top 25 percent will be awarded grants, Young said. He said the budget cut "raises the bar" of competition between researchers.
Bob Huggett, MSU's vice president for research and graduate studies, said while the cut to the Life Sciences Corridor might have been necessary, it's important not to overlook the future impact life science research can have on Michigan's economy.
"It's easy to eat the seeds when you're hungry," he said. "Obviously the budget office is between a rock and a hard place."
Dantus submitted a grant proposal totaling about $1 million to develop a new way to get information from proteins using an ultra-fast laser. The laser is controlled by an advanced computer program that learns how to identify patterns in the data.
"It's as if a family were to take their kids out of school to help them make ends meet," Dantus said. "The kids have no future.
"We're just jeopardizing the future of the state of Michigan in terms of competing in the field of biotechnology."
