April 6, 2009
Discovery Park awards $300,000 in campuswide seed research grants
Discovery Park has awarded more than $300,000 for funding eight research projects at Purdue's West Lafayette and regional campuses, Discovery Park executive director Alan H. Rebar announced.
Projects selected for funding are:
* New Chemistries for Control of Arthropod Vectors: Primary investigator Catherine Hill, entomology; and Val Watts, pharmacy; partner: Bindley Bioscience Center.
* New Statistical Approaches to Enhance Genome-wide Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Association Mapping to Identify Genetic Markers for Common Complex Human Diseases: Primary investigator Min Zhang, statistics; James Fleet, foods and nutrition; and Dabao Zhang, statistics; partner: Oncological Sciences Center.
* A Proteomic Roadmap to the Endogenous Protein Complexes of the Endoplasmic Reticulum in Key Plant Species: Primary investigator Daniel Szymanski, agronomy; Mark Hall, biochemistry; Scott Jackson, agronomy; Christopher Staiger, biological sciences; and Olga Vitek, statistics; partner: Bindley Bioscience Center.
* A New Method for Pain Assessment-functional MRI as a Tool to Assess Acute and Chronic Pain in Animals: Primary investigator Jeff Ko, veterinary clinical sciences; Brenda Austin, veterinary clinical sciences; and Thomas Talavage, electrical & computer engineering/biomedical engineering; partner: Bindley Bioscience Center
* Toward Nanoscale Imaging and Spectroscopy of Single Cells by Magnetic Resonance: Primary investigator Corey Neu, biomedical engineering; and Babak Ziaie, electrical and computer engineering; partner: Birck Nanotechnology Center.
* Nucleation of Pharmaceutical Crystals Quantified by Second-order Nonlinear Optics: Primary investigator Garth Simpson, chemistry; and Lynne Taylor, industrial and physical pharmacy; partner: Bindley Biosci¬ence Center.
* Interactive Effects of Climate Change and Land Use on Indiana's Glacial Lakes: Primary investigator Tomas Höök, forestry and natural resources; Indrajeet Chaubey and Keith Cherkauer, agricultural and biological engineering; Bryan Pijanowski and Linda Prokopy, forestry and natural resources; Cary Troy, civil engineering; partners: Center for the Environment and Purdue Climate Change Research Center.
* Liquid Phase Epitaxy of High Band Gap Materials for Solar Cells and Light Emitting Diodes: Primary investigator Jerry Woodall, electrical and computer engineering; partner: Energy Center.
This year's Discovery Park seed grant competition featured 54 proposals vying for a share of the more than $300,000 set aside for this program.
Rebar said the purpose of the grants is to fund early, novel research efforts that have societal impact and demonstrate a path for additional funding. The proposals also are required to include a partner with one of Discovery Park's 11 primary research centers.