Downtown INBRE Lab Construction Complete

HPU completed construction of its new IDeA Network of Biomedical Research (INBRE) Laboratories at the Model Progress building (1188 Fort Street).

INBRE, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health in partnership with the University of Hawai‘i and Chaminade University, supports instructional lab courses, increases undergraduate and graduate research opportunities, expands facilities for federally-funded biology, microbiology and biochemistry research projects, and enhances outreach to local schools. 

The HPU INBRE team includes faculty Drs. David Horgen, Gideon Berger, Yongli Chen and Lei Wang; research facility manager Dr. Yunfeng Pan; and Melissa Boldridge.

Assistant Professor Lei Wang, Ph.D., will be the INBRE faculty member 

on site at the Model Progress building lab  

INBRE already boasts 40 undergraduate coauthors on scholarly presentations and manuscripts. Nearly 100 students have participated in research projects led by HPU’s four biomedical research faculty, with undergraduate research projects enriched by a global network of collaborators. The new lab complex will also create more faculty positions at HPU, with recruiting efforts in full force to identify a new biology faculty focused on biomedical research.

INBRE alumni success stories:

·         Kelly Galbraith (BS Biochemistry ’11) earned an MS in Biostudies from Kyoto University and is currently enrolled in the Ph.D. program of the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University.

·         Tifanie Vansach (BS Marine Biology ’08) is in the Ph.D. program, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida Atlantic University.

·         Kristina Mojica, Ph.D., (BS Marine Biology ’04) holds an MS in Biological Oceanography from the University of Hawai‘i and a Ph.D. from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. Mojica is presently a post-doctoral fellow at Oregon State University.      

·         Erik Henze (BS Biochemistry ’16), originally from Kailua, is in the biophysical chemistry Ph.D. program at Cornell University.

·         Aaron Thomas (BS Chemistry ’14), who is from Macon, Georgia, is studying astrochemistry in the Ph.D. program of University of Hawai‘i.     

·         Leo Phuc Nguyen (BS Biochemistry and Math ’13), born in Vietnam and raised in Hilo, is enrolled in the MS, Biomedical Engineering program, University of Pennsylvania.