ITHACA, N.Y. -- David Lin, assistant professor of biomedical sciences in the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, has been awarded one of the 20 2003 Beckman Foundation Young Investigator grants awarded nationally.

The grant to Lin, providing $240,000 over a three-year period, is to further his study of connectivity in the mouse olfactory system. Laboratory mice, including transgenic mice, are used by Lin as animal models to study axon guidance and target selection in the nervous system. His laboratory focuses on the olfactory system and how neurons in the nose are able to identify their appropriate targets in the brain. A better understanding of connectivity in one species' olfactory system might someday inform studies of development or regeneration of other critical systems.

Awards from the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation are made to nonprofit institutions to promote research in chemistry and the life sciences. The Young Investigators grants are intended to provide research support to the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of academic careers in the chemical and life sciences.

Lin joined the Cornell faculty in 2001 after earning a Ph.D. in molecular biology at the University of California-Berkeley. Previous honors include a recent Sloan Research Fellowship.