5 minute read
INNOVATION
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From left, April Becker, assistant professor of behavior analysis, with Carlos Lopez, Ph.D. student
Learn more about UNT’s Tier One research. research.unt.edu
Increasing Opportunity
UNT joins Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities.
UNT has joined 20 of the nation’s top research universities in the formation of the Alliance of
Hispanic Serving Research Universities to increase opportunity for those historically underserved by higher education. The universities represent every university that has been both categorized as R1 (very high research activity) by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education. The HSRU Alliance aims to achieve two key goals by 2030: Double the number of Hispanic doctoral students enrolled at Alliance universities and increase by 20% the Hispanic professoriate in Alliance universities.
CHECK OUT UNT’S NEW YOUTUBE SERIES, THE LAB, WHERE RESEARCHERS BREAK DOWN HOW THEIR AMAZING WORK IN SCIENCE, ART AND TECHNOLOGY IS REVOLUTIONIZING OUR EVERYDAY LIFE.
— Guido Verbeck
A professor in the Department of Chemistry, on technology he helped develop that was licensed by Frisco startup InspectIR and granted Federal Drug Administration Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for use as a breathalyzer detection for SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). This is the first UNT-sourced intellectual property to receive FDA approval. Verbeck says the technology could lead to possible non-invasive diagnostics for other diseases, including some cancers.
FUNGAL-DERIVED MEDICINE APHASIA SUPPORT
Researchers in UNT’s BioDiscovery Institute secured a $1.4 million grant from the W. M. Keck Foundation
to explore the potential to cultivate fungal-derived pharmaceuticals like penicillin in plant hosts for more accessible and environmentally sustainable medicine. This first-ofits-kind study will establish a new concept for producing valuable fungal products and may lead to medicines that can be delivered in plant seeds. “What we’re thinking long-term is that if plants can store medicines in seeds, you eat the seeds, and the medicine is already contained. You don’t have all these factories, and you don’t need any chemicals,” says Elizabeth Skellam, assistant professor of chemistry. Skellam is leading the research team that includes Kent Chapman, director of the UNT BioDiscovery Institute; Ana Paula Alonso, associate professor of biological sciences; and economics professor Michael Carroll.
Researchers in UNT’s College of Health and Public Service are helping
people living with aphasia in North Texas get better connected to the support and services that may be available to them.
Aphasia, which can be caused by stroke, trauma and other brain injuries, is a debilitating communication disorder that impairs language abilities. Gloria Olness, associate professor of audiology and speech-language pathology, is working with a group of research speech-language pathologists and Liam O’Neill, associate professor of rehabilitation and health services, to lay the foundation for The Aphasia Collaborative — a multi-institutional, multidisciplinary and interpersonal network to provide help.
Their research is funded by the Josephine Simonson Aphasia Trust Fund at the Southwestern Medical Foundation.
INNOVATION
Mobility Corridor Growing Nanodiamonds
UNT partnered with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) to develop an Advanced Regional Mobility Cor-
ridor that will offer future economic opportunity and growth. The collaboration will yield a plan for facilitating a multi-modal advanced transportation corridor between the North Texas region and the bordering CNO Reservation that will leverage progress with emerging transportation technologies, including automated ground vehicles and advanced air mobility, helping to improve the quality of life and health.
“UNT is committed to finding solutions for transforming mobility and recently announced plans for an outdoor testing facility — UNT Advanced Air Mobility Test Center — which will significantly increase UNT’s research capacity for unmanned aerial vehicles and other emerging areas of research,” UNT President Neal Smatresk says. “We are excited to partner with the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.”
UNT chemistry researchers have discovered a novel way to grow
nanodiamonds. The new growth method researched by Hao Yan, assistant professor of chemistry, and his team yields nanodiamonds that are extremely small and uniformly sized. Previously, they were created using explosives and required further modification for consistent sizes. The novel method to produce these tiny diamonds — only a few nanometers wide and used in drug delivery, sensors and quantum computer processors — will allow them to be more easily modified for various uses.
“Many of the applications of nanodiamonds, particularly for drug delivery, depend sensitively on their sizes,” Yan says. “Making them smaller has two benefits. First, a smaller diameter means a larger specific surface area, thus higher capacity as a drug vehicle. Second, the smaller size eases the removal and excretion of these diamond particles and reduces their toxicity.”
By the Numbers
11
That’s the number of students and faculty members from UNT who earned awards from the prestigious Fulbright
Program for the 2022-23 awards cycle. Since 1960, there have been more than 80 faculty named as UNT Fulbright Scholars and Specialists. There have been more than 50 UNT Fulbright Student Award winners since 1949. The most recent faculty members earning awards, and their departments, include: Andrew Torget, history, for the Fulbright Scholar Program; Sarah Moore, social work; and Cindy Watson, Teach North Texas, for the Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad to Norway. UNT students who earned Fulbright U.S. Student Program Awards for 2022-23 are Zoe Czarnecki, Alexa DeCarlo, Conner Essex, Samuel Hallerman and Lezli McDaniel for the English Teaching Assistant Awards; and Samuel Gaskin, Megan Kelly and Alexa Skillicorn for Study/Research Awards.
Additionally, Rose Baker, learning technologies, Sian Brannon, libraries, and Dipakkumar Pravin, information technology and decision sciences, were selected for the Fulbright Specialist Roster and are now eligible to be considered for a Fulbright Specialist Award.
Established in 1946 by Senator J. William Fulbright, the Fulbright Program aims to increase the mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries through international educational exchange programs.
