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Pauling Institute gets $6 million
By Kyle Odegard
Corvallis Gazette-Times
The Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University has received a five-year, $6 million grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, an agency of the National Institutes of Health.

“The Linus Pauling Institute has established itself as a national and international leader in research and education on micronutrients and antioxidants,” said Balz Frei, professor and director of the institute. “Our research is focused on ‘healthspan,’ with the goal of maximizing the period of a person’s life where they are generally healthy and free of suffering and chronic illness.”

The grant is an extension of current funding for the institute and will allow it to further research promising developments in recent years. Institute studies have pointed toward new ways to help prevent or treat heart disease and cancer, slow the aging process and generally improve health through diet, lifestyle and complementary medical approaches, including use of dietary supplements.

In future years, some of the laboratory findings with micronutrients and phytochemicals — chemicals naturally found in fruits and vegetables — will increasingly move to human clinical trials to demonstrate their efficacy.

Linus Pauling Institute researchers plan to use the new grant to work with experts at the Oregon Health & Science University on clinical testing of lipoic acid supplements. Laboratory studies concluded that lipoic acid can help address the risk factors for heart disease and also reduce weight gain.

In related work, scientists will also determine whether the compound can improve resistance to toxins in aging, and explore its role in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

The Linus Pauling Institute was started by Linus Pauling, a two-time Nobel laureate and Oregon State University alumnus. It moved to OSU in 1996, and since then its staff has expanded from 10 people to more than 60, including 11 principal investigators. Last year, researchers attracted more than $5 million in external funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Construction is planned to start on campus next year on the new $62.5 million Linus Pauling Science Center, which will house institute scientists, as well as classrooms and lab space.

The Linus Pauling Institute and Harvard University are the only two research organizations in the nation designated as a center of excellence for research on complementary and alternative medicine.

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