font size: Research Activities
Research activities in 2008 continued to contribute significantly to the academic environment and excellence in teaching and learning activities at IMU.
The current IMU Research Laboratory with a floor space of 10,368 sq ft is being expanded and upgraded further, increasing the floor space to about twice the current floor area. Improved laboratory animal caging and housing facilities have been installed at the expanded Animal Holding Facility. This will contribute immensely to the quality of research involving experimental animals.
In the last five years, the areas of research emphasis were: (i) bioactive molecules, (ii) cancer, (iii) building related illnesses, (iv) pharmacogenomics and pharmaceutics, (v) clinical research, and (vi) medical education research. A conference was held on 1 August 2008 to audit and evaluate what has been achieved at IMU in research. This is a necessary activity under good research governance and enables us to take stock of our research efforts and make strategic modifications to meet future challenges. Based on the experience gained during the last few years and on feedback from discussions at the conference, we have now fine tuned the thrust areas for research to be as follows: (i) environmental health, (ii) cancer biology, (iii) stem cell research, (iv) active bio-molecules and cellular mechanisms, (v) pharmaceutics and drug delivery systems, and (vi) natural compounds and nutraceuticals.
IMU researchers continued to attract external funding for research. The total amount of external funds generated in 2008 was RM 1,945,760 compared to RM 1,854,799 in 2007. Of these RM 883,099 and RM 1,037,535 were disbursed in 2007 and 2008 respectively.
The main source of these external funds was from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation through the eScience and eTechno Funds. Other sources of external funding were Toray Science Foundation, Ministry of Health Malaysia, Malaysia Palm Oil Board (MPOB), and multinational pharmaceutical companies. Internal research funds from IMU for 2007 and 2008 were RM 1,020,000 and RM 980,000 respectively. In addition, IMU provided RM 1,000,000 for equipment support for 2008 compared to RM 861,800 for 2007.
