Newsletter Wi n t er 2 01 4
Boise State Receives $10 Million COBRE Grant from NIH By: Kathleen Tuck
Kristen Mitchell, Julia Oxford and Trevor Lujan
A $10 million grant over five years from the National Institutes of Health will establish a prestigious Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) in Matrix Biology at Boise State University. COBRE centers promote collaborative, interactive efforts among researchers with complementary backgrounds, skills and expertise. The COBRE in Matrix Biology is funded by the NIH National Institute of General Medicine.
The IDeA program builds research capacities in states that historically have had low levels of NIH funding by supporting basic, clinical and translational research; faculty development; and infrastructure improvements.
This is the first COBRE grant awarded to Boise State and the third in Idaho. It will support research in heart disease, cancer and stroke; ligament injury and repair; and liver fibrosis. Additional projects could be added over the course of the grant in musculoskeletal and cancer research.
The grant will be housed within the Boise State Biomolecular Research Center (BRC) and administered by Julia Oxford, biology professor and director of the BRC. The grant is part of the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) program, which broadens the geographic distribution of NIH funding for biomedical and behavioral research.
“An award of this magnitude is recognition of the high-quality research being done by Boise State’s biomolecular faculty investigators and will allow us to increase our biomedical research efforts. It demonstrates that our researchers are contributing to solving the major health concerns of the nation,” said Boise State President Bob Kustra. “ It also reflects the university’s focus on the collaborative, transdisciplinary research that is vital to innovation and scientific discovery.”
Kustra made a particular point about the role private donors – Duane and Lori Stueckle of Boise – played in making this grant possible. The Stueckles learned about Oxford’s research in 2005 and began investing in her work and faculty position through regular philanthropic gifts, ensuring her research would stay at Boise State.
“Duane and Lori’s generosity and commitment to Boise State helped create this extraordinary opportunity,” Kustra said. “It’s an inspiring example of how donors can potentially impact thousands of lives by giving and how philanthropy is building the future of this university.”
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Self-Powered Sensors Aim to Keep Tabs on Nuclear Disasters By Kathleen Tuck
A research team led by Yanliang Zhang at Boise State University is working to make sure authorities can keep tabs on what’s happening inside a nuclear power plant in the wake of a disaster like the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that crippled Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in 2011.
Zhang, assistant professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering, is attempting to harvest the heat from a nuclear power plant to enable selfpowered sensor networks. He and Darryl Butt, a distinguished professor of materials science and engineering, will develop high-efficiency thermoelectric generators using thermal energy from nuclear reactors.
Their work is funded by a three-year $980,804 grant from the Department of Energy called a Nuclear Energy Enabling Technological (NEET) Research and Development and Infrastructure Award. Zhang’s proposal was one of only six selected for the 2014 awards from almost a hundred submissions under the NEET Advanced Sensors & Instrumentation program.
“Sensors are critical to nuclear safety,” Zhang said. “If they are self powered, even during an outage the sensors will be working and people can
Yanliang Zhang holds an example of a thermoelectric generator he is developing with co-investigator Darryl Butt. access all the needed information. This will enhance the safety of both nuclear plants and spent fuel storage facilities.”
To be successful, Zhang will need to develop an efficient and reliable thermoelectric generator that can withstand the extreme conditions inherent to the industry. The team will study materials that cover working temperatures Continued on back