OSU Three-for-Three in NSF Competition

Friday, August 24, 2007

The National Science Foundation has awarded more than $1.5M to Oklahoma State University scientists for the acquisition and/or development of highly specialized instruments used in research activities on campus and at Venture I in the Oklahoma Technology and Research Park.

OSU submitted three proposals—the maximum number allowed by any one university—in the NSF Major Research Instrumentation competition and received grants for all three projects. Commenting on the awards, Stephen W.S. McKeever, vice president for research and technology transfer, said these instruments will greatly enhance OSU’s research capabilities in areas of interest to industry, government and other universities.

● NSF awarded $605,000 to Charlotte L. Ownby, director of the OSU Microscopy Laboratory at Venture I; Bret N. Flanders, physics department; Eliot A. Atekwana and Estella A. Atekwana, Boone Pickens School of Geology; and Jim Smay, School of Chemical Engineering, for the project entitled “MRI: Acquisition of a Field Emission Environmental Scanning Electron Microscope to Enhance Research and Teaching at Oklahoma State University.”

The acquisition of the state-of-the-art field emission environmental scanning electron microscope will improve the quality and expand the scope of OSU's research, training and education activities. The instrument will be housed in the OSU Microscopy Laboratory, which serves five colleges, 20 departments and eight private companies. This equipment is a critical part of a broader effort to upgrade the microscopy and imaging capabilities and will serve over 60 individual research and research training programs.

The instrument will advance the research of four major research projects: geological and materials sciences, including the investigation of the interaction of microbes with geological materials and the electrical changes that result; the investigation of colloidal assembly processes using a direct writing technique using colloidal gel-based inks; and the investigation of a new technique of directed electrochemical growth of nanowires to a biological cell while retaining the viability of the cell.

It will be available to over 200 faculty, students, postdoctoral fellows and staff in courses serving culturally diverse students from multiple disciplines and in a statewide nanotechnology course. The lab also participates in many programs for underrepresented groups and women pursuing degrees in science and engineering. The instrument will be used by researchers at Langston University to train K-12 teachers, Native American students in Oklahoma, and children through the “Ugly Bug” contest and the Stillwater Children’s Museum.

● NSF awarded $458,139 to Steven D. Hartson, Andrew J. Mort, Jose L. Soulages, Michael A. Massiah, biochemistry and molecular biology department, OSU Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources; and Robert L. Burnap, microbiology and molecular genetics department, for the project entitled “MRI: Acquisition of an LTQ Mass Spectrometer.”

The instrument is from a new generation of sophisticated mass spectrometers that determine the molecular weights of molecules. Modern mass spectrometers dissect biomolecules, thereby revealing their molecular structure and identity. These new instruments are also used in the new fields of “proteomics” and metabolomics,” studying whole sets of biomolecules instead of studying them one at a time. These high-throughput strategies are exciting avenues for discovering disease biomarkers.

OSU’s new mass spectrometer will use electrical fields to accumulate charged molecules in an “ion trap.” In the trap, molecules can be broken into smaller pieces, and their sizes can be measured. This process can be repeated up to 10 times, drilling into the structure of a molecule. The new machine is high-speed—13 molecules can be dissected per second.

Hartson manages the DNA/Protein Core Facility, where the new mass spectrometer will be located. Fifteen different researchers from various colleges will use the new mass spectrometer and other facility resources to dissect plant cell walls and bioactive peptides produced by insects, fungi and mammals; to identify the specific proteins that govern plant and animal disease processes; to identify protein modifications that regulate the transport of fats, photosynthesis and mammalian development; and to foster student research and education.

● NSF awarded $446,258 to Regina Kalchgruber, Radiation Dosimetry Laboratory at Venture I; Alexander R. Simms and Ibrahim Cemen, Boone Pickens School of Geology; and Eduardo G. Yukihara, Physics Department, for the project entitled “MRI: Development of a Confocal Instrument for Spatially Resolved Luminescence Measurements in Geologic and Archaeological Dating and Radiation Dosimetry.”

Kalchgruber proposed the development of an innovative instrument that will apply the principles of confocal microscopy to luminescence dating. Optically stimulated luminescence dating is a well-established technique for age-dating the last sunlight exposure of sediments (i.e., time since deposition). The method measures the luminescence emitted from the sample during stimulation with light in the laboratory.

The instrument will consist of an optical setup including lasers for stimulating the samples, a confocal arrangement for laser scanning and detection of luminescence from a controlled sample volume at high-spatial resolution, and facilities for irradiation, bleaching and temperature control. It will be controlled with a PC and allow fully automated measurements over a wide temperature and wavelength range.

Commercially available luminescence readers and techniques require the grains to be removed from their surrounding material, thereby destroying spatial information. This methodology excludes many geological and archaeological samples, such as rocks, where only the outer surface is exposed to sunlight. The confocal instrument enables measurements with bulk samples and provides high spatial resolution. This will allow the technique to be applied to many previously undatable deposits where precise geometry is essential.

The instrument will be the second surface dating instrument worldwide and the first in the United States. It will broadly impact the academic research infrastructure nationwide and in the EPSCoR State of Oklahoma. The facility will expand the application breadth of the luminescence technique and create many new interdisciplinary research activities with external users, promoting cross-disciplinary collaborations with a broad, multidisciplinary user base.