This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This award provides renovated laboratory infrastructure for the conduct of nano and molecular biotechnology research in the Wilson Laboratories at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Agricultural Center. The Wilson Laboratories, where the renovation will take place, were originally constructed in 1961. Although several portions of the building have been renovated over the years, appropriate laboratory facilities to support newer research areas are not available.
Intellectual Merit: The renovation will create three new laboratories: Nanotechnology (with a clean room), Protein Chemistry, and Tissue Culture. The renovations include new casework, interior finishes, fume hoods, a Class 1000 clean room, and de-ionized water system. These facilities will accelerate research in areas such as gene and drug delivery, plant-derived bioactive compounds, antimicrobial nanoparticle synthesis, molecular dynamics simulation of protein function, cell based biosensors, BioMEMS, photoactivated gene silencing, and development of C. elegans as a biomedical model.
Broader Impacts: The renovated facility will serve as research laboratories for researchers and students in the LSU Agricultural Center, as well as for satellite and collaborating institutions throughout the region. In addition, the renovated facility will promote broader impact by serving as a central resource for the LSU Agricultural Center Biotechnology Education for Student and Teachers (BEST) program, where high school teacher-student pairs work in LSU laboratories during summers to conduct hands-on research in bioetechnology. In prior years, BEST participants were scattered at various locations, so housing them in laboratories within the renovated facility will enhance not only collaboration among researchers, but also foster cross-disciplinary research as well.
This renovation project addressed critical research issues related to space limitations and inadequate infrastructure for the conduct of nano- and molecular biotechnology research in Wilson Hall Laboratories at the LSU Agricultural Center. The renovation converted dilapidated, underutilized space to create additional research laboratories and improved the existing research infrastructure. Requested funds were used to create and upgrade a total of 1,400 square feet of wet laboratory space with snorkel and standard chemical fume hoods, resin bench top workspaces and cabinetry, a central deionized water system, and air handling infrastructure to accommodate chemical and biosafety hoods. Deliverables of the project included completion of construction and commissioning of these facilities, move-in by investigators, and initiation of research. The improved facilities will support several overlapping research programs, all focused on furthering intellectual merit in fields such as bionanotechnology, microfabrication, and nanoscale biomaterials. The first ongoing program, whose research is supported by an NSF CAREER award, involves the synthesis and characterization of photoactivatable oligonucleotides for targeted gene silencing. These photoactivatable oligonucleotides will help elucidate both the kinetics and mechanisms of nucleic acid function, and also regulate developmental and other cellular processes, providing improved research and therapeutic tools to both basic and clinical sciences. This program is complemented by another NSF CAREER award funded program on nanoscale synthesis and design of functionalized particles for gene and drug delivery, implemented in light-targeted stem cell differentiation for tissue engineering applications. Additional ongoing research effort focuses on the design and microfabrication of cell-based microfluidic devices capable of detecting the health status of single cells from patients or laboratory samples. A final project that will benefit from the new facilities is one focused on designing and developing nanodelivery systems for vitamins and antioxidants, to improve storage, processing, delivery and bioavailability. The broader impact and research outcome measures for this program will include the submission of peer reviewed journal articles, generation of intellectual property fillings, graduate and undergraduate student training and public presentations at scientific conferences.
