KSU professor receives $201K for research

Published: 06/03/2008

By Elizabeth Farnsworth
Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer

KENNESAW - A Kennesaw State University professor received a $201,000 federal grant on Monday afternoon for his work studying nitric oxide, a neurotransmitter that helps control human blood pressure.

KSU bioinformatics Professor Dr. John C. Salerno received the Academic Enhancement Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences for his research investigating the molecular production of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide also helps control functions such as insulin secretion, blood vessel development, and neurotransmitters within human brains.

Bioinformatics is the combined study of biology, computer science and information technology.

U.S. Rep. Dr. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta), the ranking member of the House science subcommittee on technology and innovation, presented Salerno with the grant. The grant project period began on May 15, and will run through April 30, 2010.

"I hope to enable other people to make medical discoveries that will be important in getting control of these signaling systems," Salerno said.

Gingrey, a medical doctor, said Salerno's research would help doctors treat their patients.

"It (the research) has a whole lot to do with clinical medicine," Gingrey said.

Nitric oxide is also responsible for serious health problems such as toxic shock syndrome or septic shock, Salerno said. He said he hopes to "break open" how nitric oxide is controlled, and the time frame under which it is produced.

Dr. Laurence Peterson, dean of the KSU College of Science and Mathematics, is working to build up KSU's graduate departments. Perhaps someday KSU will be able to offer a doctorate in the sciences, he said.

"John's work enhances it," Peterson said.

Salerno is the Neel Distinguished Professor ofBiotechnology at KSU. He has been at the Kennesaw university for nearly two years. Salerno first began studying nitric oxide in the 1990s.

Salerno earned a Bachelor of Science in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and earned a Doctor of Philosophy in biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in biochemistry, biophysics and bioinformatics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, State University of New York at Albany, Albany Medical College and the Duke University Medical School. While at Rensselaer, Salerno started the first U.S. undergraduate degree program in bioinformatics.

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