This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This Major Research Instrumentation-Recovery and Reinvestment (MRI-R2) award funds the acquisition of high throughput crystallization and collection devices at the Biomolecular X-ray Crystallography (BXC) Center at Washington State University (WSU). Research benefitting from the acquisition includes projects to investigate mechanisms of DNA damage and repair, reproductive physiology, defense against bioterrorism, causes and prevention of major worldwide diseases, plant defense systems, redox chemistry, protein folding, production of food and renewable energy, and reduction of environmental pollution. Automation of crystallization and availability of high flux X-ray generators with dual wavelengths (Cu and Cr anodes) has significantly enhanced the overall scientific, and establishes the BXC Center as a regional center for high-throughput structure determination. The availability of the high throughput devices allows the BXC Center to not only continuously address the most compelling scientific questions in each of those on-going collaborations but also allows expansion of the collaborations and services to include new neighboring institutes. The instrumentation provides extended and efficient service for the regional research and teaching community to collectively enhance their scientific programs via access to and utilization of a core. The BXC Center performs numerous services and external collaborations with many institutions across the Nation, and is active in enhancing regional teaching and training capabilities at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school level through laboratory experiments and classroom instruction. The high throughput devices increases the Center's role in this region to produce world-class scientists of the next generation derived from diverse economic, ethnic and geographic backgrounds. Results from the studies enabled by the new equipment are disseminated by student and faculty presentations at regional and national meetings, and through publication in peer-reviewed journals.
IMPACT ON RESEARCH: Since their instalation, approximately fifteen faculty, twenty-five postdoc and graduate students have been trained and/or used the high-throughput crystal-screening robotics and new X-ray diffractometer instruments. Based on its current usage, those equipments funded by NSF-MRI serves four WSU colleges: the College of Sciences; the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences; the College of Engineering and Architecture; and the College of Veterinary Medicine. Within these four colleges, eight departments and school/program are served: the Department of Chemistry, School of Biological Sciences, School of Molecular Biosciences, the Institute of Biological Chemistry, Veterinary Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, Chemical Engineering and Material Sciences, Molecular Plant Science program, and Pharmacology and Toxicology program. The BXC Center equipped with those state-of-the art instruments also performs numerous services and external collaborations with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, US NAVY research center, USDA Florida, Georgetown Univ., Rush Medical University, Florida State Univ., Univ. of Florida and Univ. of Idaho. Through NSF-MRI funding, the Center has substantially increased the scientific output of local/regional researchers. For example, the instruments start being used by neighboring primarily undergraduate institutes: Eastern Washington University and Gonzaga University. - Undergraduate Education: The new instruments have directly contributed to training of undergraduates in classroom instruction (MBios413, MBios465, MBios466, MBios498, Chem398 and Chem543). Currently undergraduates are actively participating in the research projects of many users of BXC Center and are mentored by the PI, BXC staff and PI’s graduate students taking advantage of those new instruments. For example, in 2012, Alexander Walker, WSU undergraduate student, has received the highest honor award from WSU Honors College with a research performed with the new instruments. IMPACT ON COMMUNITY OUTREACH: BXC Center has participated in an annual residential academic summer camp designed to meet the educational and social needs of highly capable students who are interested in being challenged and learning while having a good time and entering grades 7 through 12 in the fall throughout the northwestern states. In 2011, the BXC Center hosted seventeen middle school students (first week) and nineteen high school students (second week) to explore the new equipments, and delivering the principles behind them. The two five-day camps showed them how rewarding college life and science/technology can be, and after attending the courses, many students showed increased interest in pursuing higher education, a clear departure from their initial sarcastic or skeptical views of science and academia.
