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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Although $200 million in new USTAR funding does not become available until July, the promise of it already has enabled Utah's two research universities to recruit researchers.
The first hires under the Utah Science, Technology and Research Economic Development Initiative will transplant their teams to Utah State University and the University of Utah this summer.
Initially, they will be funded by $7 million in USTAR money from 2005, but it was the promise of the $200 million package that enabled the schools to land contracts with top researchers.
"With the passage of the USTAR package, we can now say, 'Yes, the state is making a long-term investment,' " said Jack Brittain, vice president of technology venture development at the University of Utah. "You're joining something that's going to have continuity. It's not just a one-time thing."
USTAR provides funding for research personnel and facilities at both institutions in the hope that research will create new technologies, jobs and spin-off companies.
Each school has landed two hires.
The University of Utah is not releasing their names yet, Brittain said they are in information technology fields. The university's top priorities for USTAR will be homeland security and diseases such as Alzheimer's and depression.
Utah State's first USTAR professors will David York and Krishna Shenai.
York, a researcher at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana, will join the USU nutritional team to study how to manipulate the brain to foster weight loss and reduce fat intake.
In the past year, York worked on three patents for drugs that could inhibit fat intake by altering brain chemicals. York will bring a team of four with him to USU, along with potential grant money. Over his career, York has received more than $20 million in grants for his research.
At USU, York is expected to bring in $2 million to $3 million in grant money each year.
"There's a lot of expertise already up there at Utah State, and I think there's a lot of peripheral opportunity as well for developing technologies," he said.
Shenai comes from the University of Illinois, where he studies and creates fast, low-energy computer chips for military and space applications. Shenai holds 15 patents with 10 more pending and has co-founded three high-tech startup companies.
"By adding his competence to our nationally renowned engineering program and Space Dynamics Laboratory, we'll see some great ideas and technologies coming from this program in the near future," USU President Stan Albrecht said.
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
