The National Science Foundation has awarded three Arkansas universities – including UALR’s newly renamed Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology (EIT) – a $9 million grant to support two scientific research areas that have major economic development potential – wireless nano-bio-info-technology sensors and plant-based bioproduction.
The grant awarded to the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority will create the Arkansas ASSET Initiative – Advancing and Supporting Science, Engineering, and Technology. The grant was made through NSF’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research – EPSCoR. Grant funding will be provided to UALR, Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, and University of Arkansas in Fayetteville to support high-tech and knowledge-based industries.
EIT Dean Dr. Mary Good called the grant an opportunity for all three universities to work as a team. Adding that the project represents a new spirit of cooperation in the state, Good said the research has the potential to develop into commercial opportunities in Arkansas for technology-based start-up companies, as well as existing companies.
“This collaboration is great for the state,” she said. “Faculty and students will get to know and work with one another, and make better use of facilities and professional knowledge at all three institutions.”
Dr. Michael Gealt, dean of the UALR College of Science and Mathematics, called the grant an opportunity for all three universities play a significant part in the research.
“The important impact of the project will be the enhanced economic activity in Arkansas with applications developed for agriculture, such as new high-value specialty crops, and the bioproduction industries, including pharmaceuticals and biofuels,” Gealt said. “These will lead to more jobs for many years to come.”
One aspect of the grant will support the Wireless Nano-Bio-Info-Tech Sensor System and Center, which will create a collaborative infrastructure for the design of arrays of nanosensors that can be integrated with wireless systems and fabricated with a specialized, yet low-cost, nanofabrication technology.
Dr. Seshadri Mohan, head of the Department of Systems Engineering at UALR, said the research is exciting because it involves working with a complete system instead of individual components. This new way of looking at problems ensures that individual parts of the solution work together.
“We have many different parts of the system – sensors, wireless networking, appropriate protocols to bring them together, and useful applications,” Mohan said. For example, this systems approach could have made a huge difference for the city of New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.
“When the levee broke and flooded the city, it submerged houses and dislocated people,” Mohan said. “Sensors for the structural health of that levee could have warned us well in advance of any problem. We could have employed disaster recognition and mitigation before the event. The sensors, when networked properly, can transmit information and that information can be compiled to help with intelligent decision making.”
In other words, Mohan said, engineers could have reinforced the levee long before Katrina was a small swirl in the Atlantic Ocean. Residents could have been evacuated long before there was a danger of flooding.
Researchers are also working on building sensors to be implantable devices to sense biological functions, like a diabetic’s blood sugar, as well as a state-of-the-art wireless facility that will help network these sensors so they can produce useful information. Besides Mohan and Dr. Srini Ramaswamy, the UALR team includes Dr. Hussain Al-Rizzo, Dr. Radu Babiceanu, Dr. Guoliang Huang, Dr. Remzi Sekr, and Dr. Kenji Yoshigoe.
UAF’s Dr. Vijay Varadan, a professor of electrical engineering, medicine and the College of Engineering’s endowed chair in nano- and biotechnologies, foresees a wide variety of applications for the grant-funded research.
“For example, we will develop wearable chemical and biological hazard sensors for fire fighters, police, and security personnel. In addition, we will develop biosensors for human physiological and ambulatory monitoring and the detection of pathogens in clinical, food, agricultural, and environmental samples. These are only a few examples of the kind of devices our center will create,” he said.
Dr. Gail McClure, vice president research at the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority and project director of the Arkansas ASSET Initiative, said funds awarded to the Arkansas ASSET Initiative will be used to further develop the state’s research capabilities and support interdisciplinary activity that will:
- Enhance Arkansas’ research competitiveness,
- Create added research and training opportunities,
- Attract top scholars,
- Enable Arkansas to form new links with national and international programs, and
- Create new economic opportunities for industry and entrepreneurship.
“The grant will also help develop knowledge- and technology-based economies that will augment Arkansas’ traditional rural/light manufacturing economy,” she said. “The potential to further drive knowledge-based economic development is a key component within the two research focal areas, a strategy that is critical to the state’s future economic competitiveness.”
Recent strides to mobilize EPSCoR investments into knowledge-based commercial outcomes have been successful in Arkansas. The award will build on highly successful models to ensure “translational” productivity in these new target areas.
ASSET is categorized as “multi-institutional and interdisciplinary” because it involves several state institutions and scientists who work in several fields of study. The grant will be beneficial because it will help train entrepreneurs in the targeted research areas and support the commercialization of new technologies.
The grant focuses both on improving research infrastructure, or capability, while strengthening the potential for commercialization of the products that may be generated by research groups.
Dr. Carole Cramer, director of the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at Arkansas State University, commented on the plant bioproduction research theme. “This grant supports the development of a Plant Powered Production (P3) Center, a multi-institutional, cross-disciplinary center for research at the interface of agriculture, energy, environment, and health. The EPSCoR funds awarded through ASSET will help support state-of-the-art instrumentation, and innovative research collaborations will create exciting opportunities to develop novel high-value products and technologies for the agricultural, medical, and industrial sectors in Arkansas.”
UALR’s College of Science and Mathematics (CSAM) and Graduate Institute of Technology (GIT) will collaborate on recent advances in systems biology, genomics, and metabolic engineering that will make it possible to use plants as bioproduction factories for medicines, materials, agrochemicals, and unique biomolecules.
“This rapidly developing technology has the potential to impact human and animal health by producing new medicines and improving the health benefits of food; industry by providing enzymes, chemical feedstocks, and biofuels; and agriculture and rural development by fostering new high-value specialty products,” said Dr. Stephen Grace, associate professor of biology. He is working with fellow biologist Dr. Hong Li Wang as well as Dr. Qingfang He, associate professor of applied science in EIT.
“The goal is to ensure our competitiveness in this growing arena, build a national reputation of leadership in plant-based bioproduction, and drive economic development in Arkansas,” Grace said.
McClure, the ASSET director, added, “Previous EPSCoR projects generated 16 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants in northwest Arkansas, and five new start-up companies were developed as a result of past funding. We hope to expand this effort in northwest Arkansas and replicate this model at the research universities in northeast Arkansas and central Arkansas.”
The Arkansas Science & Technology Authority (the Authority) was created by statute in 1983 with the mission to bring the benefits of science and advanced technology to the people and state of Arkansas. This mission is addressed by strategies to promote scientific research, technology development, business innovation, and math, science and engineering education.