Bioscience

Flinn Foundation issues grant to support COVID-19 testing, cancels events

Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Phoenix-based Flinn Foundation has issued an emergency $100,000 grant to the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) to support population-based testing of the novel coronavirus in Arizona and to help TGen immediately and dramatically ramp up its capacity to analyze individual samples for the disease. The initiative is also being funded with grants from the Phoenix-based Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust and the Flagstaff-based NARBHA Institute. TGen North, the nonprofit institute’s pathogen-genomics division, is based in Flagstaff. 

Another project supported by a previous Flinn Foundation grant, the Prevent HAARM initiative, is contributing to Arizona’s response to COVID-19. Led by the Tucson-based Critical Path Institute with TGen North playing a major role, Prevent HAARM focuses on deploying tools for surveillance of hospital-acquired infections; applications to the current pandemic are being developed. [Read more]

Flinn-Brown Fellow and Flinn Scholar Sarah Coles advocates for today’s patients and tomorrow’s doctors

Dr. Sarah Coles was one of the first 24 medical students admitted to the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix.

And her commitment to the city’s first medical school has never gone away.

Coles, a Flinn-Brown Fellow, is a physician, educator, curriculum developer, policy expert, a member of state and national boards, and overall advocate for patient health.

Her career today is based one mile south of North High School in central Phoenix, where Coles was selected as a Flinn Scholar in 2002 and chose to attend the University of Arizona—sparking a lifelong commitment to the health of the state. [Read more]

Arizona universities use TRIF money to expand research, build facilities, launch startups

The Technology and Research Initiative Fund, approved by Arizona voters nearly 20 years ago, has enabled Arizona’s three public universities to build new cutting-edge research facilities and attract world-renowned scientists to the state, increase research grants and other external funding, commercialize new technology and launch startups, and provide research opportunities for college students.

Since its inception as part of Proposition 301, TRIF has raised more than $1 billion for Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University, and the University of Arizona. [Read more]