The estate of Bernadine and James Seabrandt gifted $2.2 million to the School of Molecular Biosciences, creating the Bernadine Fulfs Seabrandt Graduate Fellowship at WSU.

The fellowship will be awarded to graduate students who are in the School of Molecular Biosciences and favors students researching any area that impacts health issues, said Michael Griswold, director of the School of Molecular Biosciences.

“They made it clear that what they want to do is fund graduate students,” Griswold said.

The graduate program has research programs in areas that affect human health and there is expertise in DNA repair and chromosome biology. The program is also specialized in reproductive biology.

Currently there are 30 graduate students and they are looking to expand that number, Griswold said. Students who leave the graduate program have gone off to have careers in academics, industry and government labs.

“Exactly how this money will be used has not been decided yet, but there’s a number of options,” Griswold said. “We could use it to provide funding for research or we could use it for recruiting purposes.”