UConn is a research intensive university, a prestigious designation shared by only the nation’s top higher education institutions. We have more than 70 focused research centers where faculty, graduate students and undergraduates explore everything from new technologies demanded by industry to improving human health to enhancing public education and protecting the country’s natural resources.

A commitment to maintaining high-quality research programs is part of the institution’s fabric. This provides the opportunity for the University and its Health Center to recruit distinguished researchers with expertise in a variety of technical areas. The Health Center faculty offer expertise in neuroscience, molecular biology, molecular pharmacology, biochemistry, cell physiology, toxicology, and endocrinology, among other fields. At Storrs, the main campus, faculty expertise is equally expansive and includes advanced materials and coatings, fuel cells and sustainable energy, pharmaceutical sciences, stem cell research and image processing, to name just a few key areas.

In an effort to recognize some of the especially noteworthy achievements of our Faculty and Graduate Students, the Vice Provost posts nationally and internationally recognized achievements, honors and awards of faculty and graduate students. Go to www.research.uconn.edu/accolades.php to view recent postings.

To the right are examples of faculty research and expertise that may be of interest.

In Fond Memory of Professor Jerry Yang, Ph.D.

A global leader in efforts to demonstrate the therapeutic value of stem cell research, Jerry Yang served as Director of UCONN’s Center for Regenerative Biology since 2001. Dr. Yang laid the groundwork for an attempt to clone a human embryo, in the hope of creating embryonic stem cells that are an exact match of patients’ cells. His efforts helped promote understanding of the use of stem cells as therapies in clinical settings and put UCONN on the leading edge of stem cell science. Though he passed away in February 2009, the impact of his work continues today through students and faculty that he trained and mentored.
Internationally recognized for his research in animal embryo transfer and embryo biotechnology, Jerry Yang was probably best known for cloning Amy, a Holstein calf born in UConn’s Kellogg Dairy Center on June 10, 1999. Amy was the first cloned farm animal in the United States.

Dr. Yang’s research in practical animal biotechnology also led to many other contributions. He showed, for example, that early concerns that clones would age prematurely were false, and the Food and Drug Administration relied heavily on his work when it found that meat and dairy products from cloned farm animals were safe to eat and drink.

Jerry Yang came to the U.S. in 1983 on a prestigious national fellowship and received his MS and Ph.D. degrees at Cornell University. There, he excelled as an embryologist following postdoctoral training in animal biotechnology, was offered a position as program director in Cornell’s animal science department, with responsibility for developing an animal biotechnology program.

In June 1996, the year that Dolly the sheep was cloned in Scotland, Dr. Yang joined the faculty at UConn as associate professor of animal science and head of the Biotechnology Center’s Transgenic Animal Facility. Three years later, he announced the arrival of Amy.

By 2000, Jerry Yang had been promoted to the rank of full professor. A year later, he was appointed founding director of the University’s new Center for Regenerative Biology with five new faculty, charged with investigating areas of basic science in the growing field of regenerative biology and medicine.

In addition to his academic accomplishments Dr. Yang formed Evergen Biotechnologies a startup company based on his work at UConn and his desire to improve the dairy stock and food supply for his native China. Evergen was one of the first companies to join and graduate from UConn’s Technology Incubation Program and operates today in Vernon CT.