LAWRENCE, Kan. - A University of Kansas plant research program is losing funding from an organization backed by the Kansas Bioscience Authority. The university's Native Medicinal Plant Research Program had received $5 million over five years from Heartland Plant Innovations, one of the KBA's centers of innovation.
Barbara Timmermann, a chemistry professor who leads the plant research program, said the HPI funding will end after June, after only about half of the original funding commitment had been awarded. Timmermann said she wasn't given a reason for the cuts. HPI officials said they had to make cuts because they've received fewer funds from the KBA recently. The Lawrence Journal-World reports (http://bit.ly/LfMGPi ) that the program's research focuses on using native Kansas plants to find new molecules with potential to fight diseases, including cancer.