News
Dr. Argelia Lorence Invited to Speak at 7th Pan American Symposium - Mexico
Dr. Argelia Lorence, Assistant Professor in Metabolic Engineering at Arkansas State University, Jonesboro (ABI and Department of Chemistry and Physics), recently returned from Cuernavaca, Mexico, after serving as an invited speaker at the 7th Pan American Symposium -Mexico 2008 “Pharmaceutical Environment for Students in Pharmacy: Current and Future Perspectives”. The event, which took place September 8-12, was organized by the local chapter of the International Pharmaceutical Student’s Federation (IPSF, http://www.ipsf.org/) an organization that represents 350,000 pharmacy students in 70 countries worldwide. Dr. Lorence spoke on “Advances in the Study and Manipulation of Plant Vitamin C Biosynthesis”. While in Cuernavaca, Dr. Lorence was also invited to serve as international evaluator of the Academic Program in Pharmacy offered by the School of Pharmacy of Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos (UAEM). In addition, during this trip Dr. Lorence and her collaborator, Dr. María Luisa Villarreal Ortega, submitted the proposal entitled “Molecular characterization of natural populations of Galphimia glauca” to UAEM. If approved, these funds will allow Dr. Anabel Ortiz Caltempa, one of the scientists from the Villarreal Laboratory coming for a year to do post-doctoral studies at the Lorence Group.
Dr. Lorence is a member of the Arkansas Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Plant Powered Production (P3) Center. The EPSCoR P3 Center is a research partnership between ASU, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Research Infrastructure Improvement Program (RII): Arkansas ASSET Initiative (Advancing and Supporting Science, Engineering and Technology), and the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority (Authority).
P3 Seed Grant Recipient Presents in Shanghai, China
Xiuzhen Huang, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Sciences, Arkansas State University, recently attended and presented at The Third International Multi-Symposiums on Computer and Computational Sciences 2008, held at the Medical School, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, on October 18, 2008. Huang presented a paper entitled “Addressing Bio-sequence and Bio-structure Problems”. The paper presented a review of her lab’s work on developing novel algorithmic sequence and new complexity analysis methodology and applying them to address biosequence and bio-structure problems. While at the symposium, Huang discussed collaborations with researchers from both bioinformatics and from medical science.
Huang’s lab is in the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at Arkansas State University, and her research represented at the symposium is largely funded through a P3 Seed Grant through the Arkansas Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Plant Powered Production (P3) Center. The EPSCoR P3 Center is a research partnership between ASU, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Research Infrastructure Improvement Program (RII): Arkansas ASSET Initiative (Advancing and Supporting Science, Engineering and Technology), and the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority (Authority).
Cramer & Hood Present at the Planting Seeds for the Future: West Tennessee Alternative Crops Conference
Carole L. Cramer, PhD, Executive Director, Arkansas Biosciences Institute at Arkansas State University, and Elizabeth Hood, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Agriculture, Arkansas State University and President & CEO of Infinite Enzymes, recently attended the Planting Seeds for the Future: West Tennessee Alternative Crops Conference at the University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, November 12-13, 2008.
They presented the forum on Plant as Biofactories: New Crops with Novel Output Traits.
This conference was based on alternative or “new” crops that can be used in high-value food, health and industrial applications. Farmers, agriculture and bio-products professionals, technology developers, educators, researchers, government officials and entrepreneurs all gathered to explore some of the non-traditional crops and how they could be utilized, and the challenges of developing business around these “new” crops.
Hood’s company, Infinite Enzymes, was both a sponsor and participant in the partnering forum held the first night of the conference. The Tennessee Department of Agriculture and the Memphis Bioworks Foundation were the conference sponsors. The Memphis Bioworks Foundation is comprised of AgBioworks and BioDimensions, and is dedicated to developing new agricultural technologies and processing, resulting in a stronger bioeconomy in the Mississippi Delta, impacting both workforce development and the economy.
Together, AgBioworks and BioDimensions are developing a strategic plan for the 83-county Mississippi Delta region that encompasses the regions of Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee to help align public and private funding, create opportunities for farmers, improve the environment and increase green jobs.
Hood’s work in developing plant-made enzymes for cellulosic biomass conversion has been awarded a $1.845 million grant by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Wal-Mart Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, and is taking place at the Arkansas Biosciences Institute (ABI) at Arkansas State University.
Dr. Hood’s and Dr. Cramer’s laboratories are located at ABI, and both professors are members of the Arkansas Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Plant Powered Production (P3) Center. The EPSCoR
P3 Center is a research partnership between ASU, the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and it is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Research Infrastructure Improvement Program (RII): Arkansas ASSET Initiative (Advancing and Supporting Science, Engineering and Technology), and the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority (Authority).
Combining Technologies to Heal Patients, Virtually
By Melissa Blouin
University of Arkansas researchers seeking new ways to make healthcare more efficient and cost-effective have built a new kind of hospital: one that uses location aware systems, sensors, smart devices, radio-frequency identification and virtual reality.
Anyone can visit this hospital on “University of Arkansas” island in Second Life, a free online 3D virtual world. About 40 university students and six high school students from the EAST Initiative worked with professors Craig Thompson and Fran Hagstrom to create the virtual hospital and supply chain in Second Life.
The students have visited local hospitals to understand what needs to exist. They have created a building with patient rooms, intensive care, a diagnostics suite, a pharmacy and supply rooms. In Second Life, professors and students can create things that they believe will exist soon in the real world, and then interact with those items to see how they work.
“Students in my artificial intelligence class developed smart pill bottles that only the owner can open and that know their pill count, smart shelves that know when to re-order, a restocking robot, wheelchairs that follow way points and virtual RFID readers and tags,” said Thompson.
The students also created something that most avatars, or virtual beings within Second Life, lack – internal organs. Now the virtual doctors can perform virtual organ transplant operations.
“We feel there is huge potential here – well beyond health care or the groups we have touched so far,” stated Adam Barnes, a staff member on the project. “The project is really about the future world we will all live in -- where every object is a network object and humans can communicate with things as well as they do with each other.”
“This program cuts across the boundaries of departments and colleges, with participants and ideas from the colleges of engineering, business, education and arts and sciences,” said Malcolm Williamson, who works with the project. Partners in the project include the Center for Innovation in Healthcare Logistics, the RFID Research Center, the Center for Advanced Spatial Technologies, the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority and the EAST Initiative.
Please visit http://vw.ddns.uark.edu for more information on the project.
P3 Center Aims to Boost Molecular Biology Research
Molecular biology with plants has been given a shot in the arm by the National Science Foundation funding for what collaborating scientists call the Plant Powered Production (P3) Center, a research group on three Arkansas campuses. The P3 Center links research programs in the University of Arkansas System's statewide Division of Agriculture, on the Fayetteville and Little Rock campuses of the U of A, and in the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.
This research group was awarded a total of $5 million over three years by the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority through funding it received in August 2007 from the National Science Foundation’s Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. Project leaders are Dr. Ken Korth, a plant pathology professor with the Division of Agriculture based at UA, Fayetteville; Dr. Steve Grace, a biology professor at UALR; and Dr. Carole Cramer, director of the Arkansas Biosciences Institute at ASU.
“The goals are to develop plant molecular biology research infrastructure, develop statewide collaborative work, add new personnel, and make existing faculty more competitive for research funds,” Korth said. “For example, researchers in Fayetteville will use their expertise in extraction methods of plant compounds and work with researchers in Jonesboro who have developed plant cultures producing resveratrol, the chemical component of red wines that has many benefits to human health. Ultimately, we want to understand the ways in which plants can be used to improve human and environmental health,” Korth said. "New frontiers of plant research of antioxidants, antimicrobial agents and targeted gene insertion can be explored in rich detail."
The P3 project awards seed grants for research projects, including several so far on topics such as extraction of useful products from plant cultures and natural defenses of plants against insects. Some $440,320 worth of new instruments, all housed at Fayetteville, will streamline the collection of data. “What once took hours is now configured and tallied in seconds. This equipment is meant to add to total research capacity for scientists at UAF,” Korth said. “It is also meant to be accessible to any researcher with a need, so if anyone is interested in using the equipment they can contact me.”
Four pieces of equipment added this year include:
-- a Storm 540 phosphorimager scanner, equipped with a high-powered laser to detect quantity of fluorescence and radioisotope-labeled DNA, RNA, and proteins;
-- a Nanodrop fluorometer for accurate measurement of fluorescent samples in volumes as low as one microliter;
-- New Brunswick shaker-incubators, equipped with refrigeration, gas ports and photosynthetic lights for controlled growth of bacterial and plant cultures; and
-- a Varian Gas Chromatograph with quadruple-mass spectrometer with MS/MS capability, equipped with an autosampler injection system for liquid, volatile, or solid-phase microextraction injections. This $200,000 purchase included $100,000 from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant awarded to faculty in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. It is in the Statewide Mass Spectrometry lab in the Chemistry Building, directed by Jack Lay.
(News releases and photos are available online at http://arkansasagnews.uark.edu/392.htm)
