American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) investments in scientific research address crucial problems affecting Ohio, the nation, and the world. Conquering disease and improving health, reversing the effects of climate change from global warming, creating new nanotechnological materials, and exploring alternative energy sources – these are just some of the research thrusts in ARRA awards to The Ohio State University.
The value of these investments to Ohio and the nation goes beyond their immediate impact in creating jobs and economic activity. They provide mechanisms for creating a highly-educated and a highly-talented workforce – a workforce that is critical if we are to remain competitive in the global economy of the 21st century. The discoveries and technologies coming from these projects will serve as a cornerstone for the technology-oriented economy of Ohio and the nation.
ARRA Awards to Ohio State (Total as of 10/20/10)
National Institutes of Health (NIH) Funded Projects
New Approach to Treating ALS
“Delivery of therapeutic genes in motor neuron disease”
Arthur Burghes
Award: $1,679,896
The blood-brain barrier has been a major impediment to the success of conventional therapies in treating function-limiting, crippling, and eventually fatal diseases such as spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and amyotropic lateral sclerosis (ALS). This project proposes to develop a simple vascular delivery system to transduce genes across that barrier. Although the initial focus is on SMA and ALS, this approach holds promise for the treatment of all neurological diseases.
GENETICS OF HEART DISEASE, DIABETES, AND OBESITY
“WHI sequencing project (WHISP)”
Rebecca Jackson
Award: $2,113,954
This project focuses on post-menopausal women, in whom high-priority heart, lung, and blood factors have shown a genome-wide association with complex diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. Researchers will use a variety of techniques to create a more complete picture of how these genes either cause, or create the right environment for, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. With this understanding, potential risks for developing these diseases can be estimated and appropriate preventive measures undertaken. In clinical use, identification of the critical genes can create appropriate targets for therapy.
PREDICTORS OF NEARSIGHTEDNESS IN CHILDREN
“Myopia development in children”
Karla Zadnik
Award: $1,048,712
This continuing project is a longitudinal study of how myopia (nearsightedness) develops in white, African-American, Asian, and Hispanic children between the ages of six and 14. Annual vision examinations will measure a variety of physical and behavioral aspects of visual ability. These results will be compared with DNA-based analyses of the children who exhibit myopia in a panel of candidate genes, to determine the possible genetic bases of myopia. In addition, studies of these children’s families will provide further insights into genetic causes of myopia development.
NEW MODELS FOR GASTROINTESTINAL VIRUSES
“Breakthroughs to advance the in-vitro propagation of human noroviruses”
Quihong Wang
Award: $225,000
Human noroviruses are the leading cause of the 23 million annual U.S. cases of non-bacterial gastroenteritis (viruses causing nausea and intestinal distress). Highly contagious, norovirus-induced gastroenteritis results in over 50,000 hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths each year. To date, there are no vaccines or antiviral treatments for noroviruses, largely because there has not been a good model for studying these pathogens. Recent advances in the study of other similar viruses offer possible models for studying noroviruses. A viable cell-culture system will yield significant insights into how noroviruses grow and what factors inhibit that growth, providing a pathway to develop antiviral agents and vaccines that will reduce the incidence of gastroenteritis.
UNDERSTANDING AND TREATING CANCER
“Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center”
Michael Caligiuri
Award: $1,472,500
This award provides support for the activities of Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center (OSUCCC), a network of seven interdisciplinary programs that collectively comprise nearly 240 scientists representing 14 of the 18 colleges at Ohio State. OSUCCC research programs are focused on cancer control, experimental therapeutics, innate immunity, molecular biology and cancer genetics, molecular carcinogenesis and chemoprevention, pediatric oncology, and viral oncology. More than 50 novel therapies are currently in clinical testing at Ohio State.
MICRORNA: GENETIC REGULATORS FOR LUNG CANCER AND LEUKEMIA
“Loss of miR-29s as a predictor of response to demethylating agents”
Carlo Croce
Award: $4,057,634
MicroRNAs contribute to the progression of human cancers by regulating the expression of oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. This project will support three small clinical trials to determine whether loss of a specific type of microRNA, miR-29, predicts how cases of lung cancer and two forms of leukemia respond to treatment. Understanding the role of such microRNAs in modulating the effectiveness of chemotherapies will help to create more targeted and more effective therapies for cancer patients.
Genome-Wide Association Study to Identify Genetic Components of Knee OA: The OAI
Rebecca Jackson, MD
Award: $3,585,288
The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases awarded Rebecca Jackson, professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation (Title to include?), $3,585,288 to support research to improve our researcher’s ability to predict one’s risk for OA Osteoarthritis (OA), the most common cause of arthritis. Approximately 21 million Americans have physician diagnosed OA, while many more have not yet been diagnosed. OA is a major cause of morbidity, limitation of physical activity, and health care utilization, especially in people 45 years of age and older. Knee OA is responsible for as much chronic disability in the elderly as cardiovascular disease.
Data suggests that genetic factors play a strong role in influencing the development and progression of the disease. The goal of this project is to identify genetic alterations that increase susceptibility to knee OA among middle-aged and older adults. The results from this project should provide valuable insights into disease pathways and mechanisms, and help in the identification of novel targets for screening, prevention, and treatment of OA, thereby reducing the costly burden to public health. In addition, by performing this research within the Osteoarthritis Initiative, a public use dataset, the study becomes a national resource for investigators from diverse scientific fields.
National Science Foundation (NSF) Funded Projects:
EXPANDING THE USE OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES
“Autonomous driving in mixed-traffic urban environments”
Umit Ozguner
Award: $1,499,883
Currently, the capabilities of fully autonomous vehicles have been largely explored in limited, controlled environments. This project scales up autonomous vehicle capabilities to enable them to operate in mixed-traffic environments more characteristic of large city driving situations. Integrated advances in software, sensing and control, and modeling will address current design weaknesses. This research will lead to safer autonomous vehicles, which will open new opportunities in the nation’s transportation infrastructure and new avenues for energy efficiency.
COMPUTING ON THE PETASCALE
“Topology-aware MPI communication and scheduling for petascale systems”
D.K. Panda
Award: $920,000
The next generation of computing will involve petascale applications (systems capable of millions of billions of calculations per second), raising many challenges in designing networks that operate with speed and efficiency. This project addresses some of these challenges, including how to design a network topology and management framework that is flexible, responsive, and scalable with petascale applications. With collaborators at the Texas Advanced Computing Center and the University of California San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), this research team will produce optimized networks for high-end computing needs not only for scientific computing, but also for industry needs in rapid modeling and simulation.
TARGETED THERAPEUTICS
“Design, synthesis, and photochemistry of new Ru(II) complexes as potential photo-cisplatin analogs”
Claudia Turro
Award: $690,000
This project studies the photochemistry of ruthenium complexes, with the goal of designing new metal complexes that can bind to DNA through molecular exchange with water molecules in low-energy light conditions. This research is a building block toward the discovery of new anti-tumor agents that can be more precisely targeted to combat cancer. Dr. Turro also serves as the advisor to the Ohio State chapter of the National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers, which works to diversify the pipeline of new scientists and engineers for the nation’s workforce.
NEW WAYS TO DETECT MICROPARTICLES IN THE AIR
“Microparticles trapped in holes of plasmonic mesh: Cataloguing IR absorption spectra of individual 1-5 micron particles”
James V. Coe
Award: $458,000
Dr. Coe and his research team have devised a new method of recording “scatter-free” infrared absorption spectra from individual microparticles. These microparticles are so small that they pass unimpeded through the nose and throat and are trapped in the lungs, often causing pulmonary infections and diseases. With this technique, the chemical content of airborne dust can be analyzed to determine possible health risks in a variety of environments. Widespread application of this technique should provide cost savings through preventive health measures in the workplace by indicating levels of environmental toxins in the air.
CONTAGIOUS SUPERCONDUCTORS
“CAREER: Manifestations of the proximity effect and related phenomena in hybrid structures”
Julia Meyer
Award: $425,000
Recent improvements in our ability to control properties of materials at the nanoscale have allowed us to investigate novel properties of materials in ways previously impossible. This project explores the tendency of superconductive materials 1/1000 the diameter of a human hair to share some of their properties with other nearby materials. In a sense, superconductivity is “contagious.” What happens when a superconductor is layered with a ferromagnet is the focus of the investigation, which could provide the basis for the creation of new types of superconducting magnets that could revolutionize the technology underlying magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
HOW CLIMATE CHANGE AFFECTS THE EARTH’S CRUST
“Probing the earth system in Patagonia: Crustal motion in relation to tectonics, earth structure, the hydrological cycle, and climate change”
Michael Bevis
Award: $409,417
The accelerating pace of ice loss causes changes to the surface load carried on the earth, and thus changes the earth’s tectonics, subsurface structure, and elastic response. A further complication is that as large portions of the polar ice sheets are broken, they become icebergs in the oceans, raising sea level at a very rapid rate. Using motion geodesy measurements, these changing properties can be tracked. A better understanding of mass transfer between ice sheets and the oceans can provide an early warning of sea level rise, possibly averting massive coastal destruction, potential human casualties, and damage to the global economy.
Department of Energy (DOE) Funded Projects:
CLEAN COAL TECHNOLOGY
“Pilot Scale Testing of Carbon Negative Product Flexible Syngas Chemical Looping”
L.S. Fan, PhD
Award: $5,000,000
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded a $5 million grant to L.S. Fan, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, at The Ohio State University for advanced energy research related to clean coal technology. This award is part of the first round of projects funded under DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) which supports high risk, high reward energy research that can provide transformative new solutions for energy security and climate change.
Fan’s research focuses on a novel process known as Syngas Chemical Looping (SCL), in which coal and biomass are converted to electricity while capturing carbon dioxide emissions. The process, which has been successfully demonstrated on a laboratory scale, will be scaled up to a 250 kW pilot plant. Fan hopes to obtain performance data that will prove that SCL can be commercialized for coal-based power plants, thereby contributing to the United States’ push towards energy independence while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The demonstration pilot will take place at DOE’s recently launched National Carbon Capture Center.
