AMES, Iowa – Iowa State University researchers have so far won 30 grants worth a total $16.38 million from federal agencies awarding money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
The grants range from $4.37 million to study how algae can be used for advanced biofuel production, to $1.33 million to build infrastructure and capacity for public health intervention programs, to $351,513 to establish a 10-week summer program that gives undergraduates research experience in environmental sciences and to $52,007 to develop new procedures to generate high-quality models of proteins.
Nineteen of the awards are from the National Science Foundation. Eight are from the National Institutes of Health. One is from the U.S. Department of Energy. One is part of a University of Kentucky project for the National Institute of General Medical Science. And one is part of a project by Fluorous Technologies Inc. of Pittsburgh for the National Institutes of Health.
"The ARRA funding the university has received is allowing us to build our research infrastructure and, thus, our ability to build highly competitive research in focused areas that will address solutions to societal challenges," said Sharron Quisenberry, Iowa State's vice president for research and economic development.
The recovery act provided the National Institutes of Health with $8.2 billion, the National Science Foundation with $3 billion and the Department of Energy with $2 billion to help stimulate the country's economy by supporting scientific research.
Arden L. Bement Jr., the director of the National Science Foundation, said the funding is "sorely needed to ensure that America remains a leader in science and engineering research and education."
A research project supported by the recovery act and led by Martin Spalding, professor and chair of Iowa State's department of genetics, development and cell biology, is focused on science at the center of America's energy future.
The research group recently won a three-year, $4.37 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to study how a genetically manipulated microalga could be used to efficiently produce advanced biofuels.
"Our goal within three years is to greatly increase the amount of oil that's made by the alga and that can be converted into biodiesel," Spalding said. "The long term goal is not to just make vegetable oil for conversion to biodiesel, but to incorporate genes that allow algae to directly produce hydrocarbons for fuels."
Working with Spalding on the project are Basil Nikolau, the Frances M. Craig Professor in the departments of biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology and food science and human nutrition, who's also the deputy director of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Biorenewable Chemicals based at Iowa State and an associate scientist with the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory; Larry Halverson, an assistant professor of plant pathology; Eve Wurtele, a professor of genetics, development and cell biology; and David Oliver, an associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and professor of genetics, development and cell biology. The project is expected to support five post-doctoral researchers and one graduate student at Iowa State. Researchers at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., will also collaborate on the project.
Here are summaries of 10 other Iowa State research projects supported by the recovery act since August 2009:
Summaries of the other 19 ARRA-supported grants to Iowa State researchers are here: http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2009/aug/ARRAgrants