The cooperative efforts of NIU and two Soviet universities are forging links between the United States and the Soviet Union, which could lead to future research discoveries and improved international relations.

There is hope that the cooperative research program will involve the exchange of professors and possibly students from both NIU and Tbilisi State University in Soviet Georgia, and Azerbaijan State University in Baku, Azerbaijan, beginning as soon as next year.

Marvin Starzyk, dean of NIU’s biological sciences department, who was instrumental in launching the exchange program, said he hopes to have two Soviet scientists come to NIU as early as the spring of 1989.

The program will require enough financial support to host the first exchange of two scientists for a month’s stay at NIU. Starzyk said it is expected that the Soviets will “in turn host and support two of us for our stay there.”

Starzyk is applying for grants from the National Academy of Sciences and the Fulbright program to support the venture. However, there is no financial commitment from an institution as of yet, he said.

The program resulted from a 10-day visit last April to the Soviet Union by Starzyk and Arnold Hampel, director of the NIU Plant Molecular Biology Center. The program will concentrate on two research projects: one with Tbilisi State University and another with Azerbaijan State University.

Starzyk said he will be cooperating with Tbilisi Biophysics Professor Boris Lonsadze to conduct research on the effects of certain chemicals on bacterial metabolisms. The two will then collaborate on a joint paper to be published in an American scientific journal, he said.

Starzyk, who taught in the Soviet Union as a Fulbright scholar in the summer of 1983, said he expects to possibly return there this summer.

The second cooperative project, concentrating on the development of salt-tolerant agricultural plants, will call for an ongoing exchange of NIU and Soviet scientists from Azerbaijan State University.

According to the NIU Division of International and Special Programs, an exchange of NIU and Soviet students is a definite possibility. However, all arrangements are contingent on the finalizing of the research program.

Starzyk said he believed the cooperative program will not only be a good experience and opportunity for NIU, but will have tangible benefits for the Soviet Union as well.