WEST LIBERTY, W.Va., Jan. 3, 2017 — West Liberty University recently received a $19,300 grant to purchase state-of-the-art instrumentation to enhance its anatomy and physiology laboratories. Dr. Natalia Omelchenko applied for the grant from the WVEPSCoR, sponsored by the National Science Foundation. She is an assistant professor of biology in the department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.

Professor Natalia Omelchenko is shown in the lab that will benefit from new instrumentation. 

“We are extremely pleased with Dr. Omelchenko receiving this WVEPSCoR grant that will allow for the purchase of equipment that will directly benefit WLU College of Sciences students. Technology and equipment is essential to learning and the update will keep our student learning experience strong,” said Dr. Robert Kreisberg, Dean of the College of Sciences.

The new instruments will allow one designated physiology laboratory to be equipped with four AHK-TA iWorx stations that allow high quality physiology instructions for a typical class of 24 students attending the Anatomy and Physiology laboratory sessions in the Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at West Liberty University.

“This is critical equipment for us and our more than 280 students that are projected to benefit from these updates each year. The iWorx physiology stations allow the measures of respiratory, heart, muscle, brain and other activities including more advanced studies of membrane potentials, oxygen saturation levels, galvanic skin conductance using essentially the same hardware and software without affecting the quality or uniformity of the outputs. The new equipment together with existing resources will result in the establishment of a state-of-the-art anatomy and physiology laboratory at West Liberty University and will lead to a dramatic improvement of the physiology instruction at our university,” explained Omelchenko.

West Liberty University’s College of Sciences excels with both undergraduate and graduate education.

“We believe we offer the strongest undergraduate basic and Health Science Program in the state of West Virginia and are also the only West Virginia state assisted institution that offers a Master of Science in Physician Assistant Studies,” said Dean Kreisberg.

West Virginia is one of 27 states and territories eligible to participate in the National Science Foundation (NSF) EPSCoR initiative. EPSCoR stands for Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research.

Only the designated agency in each state may apply for these grants. In West Virginia, the NSF EPSCoR is administered by the Division of Science and Research and overseen by the Science and Research Council.

For more information, please call 1.866.WESTLIB.

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