AT THE COLLEGES UMASS-DARTMOUTH

BYLINE:
DATE: 08-10-1995
PUBLICATION: Providence Journal Company
EDITION:
SECTION: Newspapers_&_Newswires
PAGE: D-06
Botulism study: Bal Ram Singh, assistant professor of chemistry at UMass-Dartmouth, has been awarded $94,688 from the National Institutes of Health to research the working of the botulism toxin.

This is a First Independent Research and Support Training grant, and Dr. Singh is the first UMass-Dartmouth faculty member to receive such a grant. The first-year funding for the five-year grant totals $95,369.

Singh has been researching the botulism toxin, the most deadly poison known to man, for several years. Botulism is food poisoning caused by bacteria found in foods that are not properly prepared. While the toxin produced by the bacteria was found about 50 years ago, scientists still do not know exactly how it works.

Singh's current research, conducted in collaboration with Charles Hatheway, chief of the botulism lab at the Centers for Disease Control, focuses on how the toxin works in the body.