Three University of the West Indies lecturers have been awarded grants under the renowned William J. Fulbright Program to carry out fully-funded research in the United States that will later benefit Jamaicans and the economy. The three researchers, Dr. Lisa Lindo, Dr. Maxine Gossell-Williams and Dr. Wayne McLaughlin of the UWI’s Department of Basic Medical Sciences, have been awarded Fulbright grants under the Central America/Caribbean Special Fulbright Foreign Researcher Program for the calendar year 2004. As a result, they will be carrying out fully funded, three-month research projects in the United States in June of this year.
Dr. Lisa Lindo, a lecturer in Bio-Chemistry will carry out research at Ohio State University that could help Jamaicans who suffer from diabetes, one of the most common preventable ailments in the country. Dr. Maxine Gossell-Williams, a UWI Pharmacology lecturer, will spend the next three months at the University of North Carolina. She will be conducting research into how certain enzymes affect the levels of fat in the blood of pregnant women, in a bid to reduce liver failure during pregnancy. Dr. Wayne McLaughlin, Senior Lecturer in the Biochemistry Section of the UWI, will be researching ways to counter the deadly Tobacco Etch Virus that threatens Jamaica’s fledgling pepper products industry. He will be studying at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.