Funding made available through Grow Iowa Values Fund.
State economic development dollars will help Iowa State researchers find
ways to enhance ethanol yield, fight obesity, improve swine vaccines, detect
foodborne pathogens, improve soy biorefineries and develop other projects
with commercial potential.
Iowa State has awarded $788,962 from the Grow Iowa Values Fund to nine research
projects including three in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The
projects are the first winners of a grant contest designed to advance Iowa
State's economic development efforts.
A committee judged the winning projects to have high potential to do one
or more of the following:
Create new Iowa businesses or jobs based on Iowa State
technology.
Increase sales or profitability of Iowa companies that
use Iowa State technology.
Improve the products or practices of Iowa businesses
that receive assistance from Iowa State programs.
Create new Iowa State technology that can be licensed
to companies with Iowa operations.
Advance collaborative research with companies that have
Iowa operations.
State lawmakers agreed last spring to appropriate $5 million per year for
10 years to Iowa's three Regent universities. The money is to be matched
by the universities and used to grow Iowa's economy. Iowa State's share
is $1.925 million for each of the 10 years.
Iowa State is using some of that money to support short-term research projects
and improve Iowa State offices that provide technology transfer services.
Iowa State will use as much as $1.325 million per year during the 10-year
appropriation to support grants for projects with high potential for commercialization.
There will be two competitions for the grants every year. The next competition
will be late this spring.
"This grant will be a big help in pushing forward with technologies
we've been developing in our laboratories," said Victor Lin, an associate
professor of chemistry and leader of a grant-winning research team from
Iowa State's Center for Catalysis that's studying how new catalysts can
lower the cost of producing biodiesel and can convert byproducts of biodiesel
production into value-added chemicals. "At this stage, we're ready
to transfer the laboratory-scale catalysts to the production line."
The grant will not only help researchers transfer their ideas from their
labs. Lin said it is also helping students learn to apply chemistry.
"This helps our students to appreciate that what they're doing in the
laboratory can be useful to the real world," he said.
The first round of Grow Iowa Values Fund grants went to these LAS researchers
and projects:
$140,000 to Victor Lin, associate professor of chemistry; George
Kraus, University Professor of chemistry; and John Verkade, University Professor
of chemistry. They'll work to increase the efficiency, expand the
product line and enhance the profitability of the West Central Cooperative's
soy biorefinery in Ralston.
$99,800 to Martha James, associate scientist of biochemistry,
biophysics and molecular biology, and Alan Myers, professor and chair of
biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology. They'll work to
establish proof that new digestion-resistant corn starches developed at
Iowa State will combat type 2 diabetes and obesity while lowering the risk
of colon cancer.
$75,405 to Johnny Wong, professor and associate chair of computer
science, and Wallapak Tavanapong, associate professor of computer science.
They'll enhance software they've developed to measure the quality of colonoscopy
procedures and test the software in a colonoscopy practice. The project
is a collaboration with the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester,
Minn., and the University of Texas at Arlington.
Johnny Wong and Wallapak Tavanapong
Victor Lin
Alan Myers and Martha James
Around LAS
February 20 to March 5, 2006
