Contact: Robbie Ward
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A systems biology researcher at Mississippi State is receiving the university's 2009 Ralph E. Powe Research Excellence Award.
Dr. Shane Burgess is associate dean for strategic initiatives and economic development at the College of Veterinary Medicine and a professor in the college's department of basic sciences.
The annual honor is a memorial to the MSU alumnus and longtime research vice president who died in 1996. The recognition program began the following year.
Burgess, a Fellow of the Institute for Neurocognitive Science and Technology, also directs MSU's Life Sciences and Biotechnology Institute and is co-founder and co-director of the Institute for Digital Biology.
He holds a doctorate from Bristol University in the United Kingdom and the equivalent of a doctor of veterinary medicine degree from New Zealand's Massey University.
Powe Award winners are announced each spring at a campus banquet sponsored by the offices of the vice president for Research and Economic Development and Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine.
"Shane's research, publication record and grants from the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Department of Agriculture attest to the strong fundamental research that he conducts," said Susan Bridges, who co-founded the IDB with Burgess in 2005. "In addition, he always works to find practical applications for his basic research."
Burgess' scientific work has resulted in more than $5 million in nationally competitive grants and led to six patents pending and eight copyrights for software. One of the copyrights includes an MSU-hosted AgBase database that provides researchers with annotated gene and protein data for agricultural species.
Burgess is on the board of the Mississippi Biotechnology Association, where he works to help expand and enhance the state's investment in biotechnology.
In addition to research and advocacy roles, Burgess devotes considerable time to the development of the next generation of researchers. He regularly mentors graduate students and encourages veterinary medical majors to pursue research careers. Along those lines, he helped direct the university's Summer Research Experience Program funded by the National Institute for the Humanities and Merck-Merial.
"I have seen Shane's positive influence on students, and through them, on our whole graduate program and research environment," said Stephen B. Pruett, the CVM's interim associate dean for research and graduate studies and basic sciences department head.
Pruett and Bridges were among those nominating Burgess for the Powe Award, as was Dr. Mark Lawrence, a DVM associate professor.
"All of his graduate students are engaged in high levels of training and discipline outside of biology," Lawrence said.
In addition to MSU research contributions, Burgess is a founding member of the Mississippi Computational Biology Consortium and president-elect of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences, among other honors.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Dr. Burgess at 662-325-1239 or burgess@cvm.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.