A story in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal yesterday announced the Minnesota Partnership for Biotechnology and Medical Genomics will distribute nearly $6 million to seven research teams. Among the research projects that will benefit from the funding is a mesothelioma study.

The group is a partnership between the University of Minnesota, Mayo Clinic and the State of Minnesota. Mark Paller is the partnership’s program director at the University of Minnesota. He said that projects were selected by a panel of national experts, who considered the potential for commercialization of the research.

Other topics for study covered by the grant are heart disease, infection prevention and epilepsy.