UCO Forensic Science Institute receives $150,000 Kirkpatrick Foundation grant for wildlife conservation research

The University of Central Oklahoma’s W. Roger Webb Forensic Science Institute recently received a $150,000 Kirkpatrick Foundation grant for wildlife research. Through the establishment of a first-of-its-kind wildlife forensics DNA sequencing network, the grant will help revolutionize the protection and conservation of endangered wildlife.

The Rapid Online Wildlife Identification Network (ROWIN) will serve as the world’s first globally accessible network to a DNA sequencer for wildlife forensics research. The grant will help purchase the equipment that the UCO Center for Wildlife Forensics and Conservation Studies can use to identify specific genetic information linked to endangered wildlife and plant species. UCO researchers will help national and international partners reduce the amount of illegal animal poaching and plant harvesting by providing a “DNA trail” to the front door of criminal activity.

James Creecy, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology with the UCO Forensic Science Institute, looks forward to guiding the UCO students and researchers who will  collaborate on this global project.

“We will have people from around the world sending information to us in Oklahoma, which will help expose our students to national and international research,” Creecy said. “Our students will use this new equipment to realize how they can affect change on a global level.”

Dwight Adams, Ph.D., director of the UCO Forensic Science Institute, stated the Kirkpatrick Foundation grant will “revolutionize the protection and conservation of threatened and endangered wildlife, abused and neglected domestic animals and illegally harvested plants through innovative DNA sequencing techniques.”

Louisa McCune, executive director of the Kirkpatrick Foundation, described the unique opportunity and excitement surrounding the decision to fund the wildlife forensics project at UCO.

“Because most of our funding is specific to Oklahoma, we sometimes struggle to find ways in which we can support the global protection of wildlife,” McCune said. “We have found UCO to be a pitch-perfect partner to prevent the endangerment of our planet’s most important biodiversity.”

Wayne Lord, Ph.D., co-director of the UCO Center for Wildlife Forensics and Conservation Studies, explained that the grant demonstrates, “a shared global vision and local allegiance to the conservation, protection, and preservation of endangered, threatened, and exploited animals and plants.”

The DNA sequencer will be housed in the new UCO Interdisciplinary STEM Teaching and Research Center, scheduled to open in the fall 2018. The building is funded through the UCO College of Mathematics and Science’s “IGNITE the Future of STEM” fundraising campaign.

For more information about Central’s Forensic Science Institute, visit www.uco.edu/forensics.