This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This project will renovate laboratory space in Curie Hall on the campus of Radford University to create core research facilities for the university's biology and chemistry programs. This renovation is needed to allow more students to participate in undergraduate research, improve the quality and scope of the research activities of the faculty and students, provide a safer work environment, and increase collaborative efforts between the biology and chemistry programs. The majority of the research space in the building has not been renovated since its original construction nearly 40 years ago. For the biology research program, the renovation will provide a core research facility in the basement of Curie Hall with two vivariums and reconfigured space for shared research instrumentation. On the third floor of Curie Hall, a core laboratory will be created for collaborative research in chemistry and biochemistry.
Faculty in the renovated core labs will conduct research and research training in the areas of biology, microbiology, cellular and molecular biology, biochemistry, chemical kinetics and catalysis, analytical chemistry, and neuroscience. Examples of research activities proposed for the renovated laboratories include studies of the neural mechanisms that regulate appetite in an animal model, actions of the neuroendocrine and immune systems, and their impact on behavior and cognition, in free living species, investigation of the enzyme beta-glucuronidase which catalyzes the cleavage of a glucuronide group from substrates and has major implications in human health and cancer therapeutics, and development of a new catalyst for esterification and transesterification reactions related to biodiesel production.
With the core facilities for biology and chemistry research, the Biology and Chemistry Department will be able to continue its dedication to excellence in undergraduate research and education through one-on-one student/faculty mentoring. The university serves a diverse and motivated undergraduate population, which includes a significant number of first-generation college students. The renovation project will provide better laboratories to inspire more of these undergraduate students through research to pursue graduate and professional post-baccalaureate education.
The overall goal of this project was to renovate outdated and underutilized spaces in Radford Universities' Curie Hall, providing new research laboratories for use in neuroendocrine and biochemistry research. It was our hope and belief that modernization and expansion of these facilities would enable a dramatic increase in undergraduate research and the exploration of new investigatory avenues. We are pleased to report that all of our goals have been achieved.The renovated facilites are in full use and are currently supporting a wide range of scientific exploration and engagement. Curie 31 and 31F renovations were completed in August 2013, enabling a move-in during March/April. Though the space was partially utilized through autumn of 2012, full utilization did not begin until mid-late spring. The space houses a variety of equipment including centrifuges, freezers and refrigerators, a spectrophotometer, a Noldus Ethovision behavioral tracking unit, and a cryostat. In addition, it provides special housing and observation chambers for use in targeted behavioral testing of songbirds and housing of large numbers of invertebrate research animals, including hawkmoths, fruit flies, red cherry shrimp, termites and Madagascar hissing cockroaches. Research investigations in this space have included a variety of neuroendocrine, immune and behavioral studies, focusing on such issues as: interactions between stress and immunity in invasive songbird species, role of novel hormones in control and regulation of insect growth and development, and interaction of stress and behavior across family members in wild bluebirds. Curie 31 spaces have also supported and enabled additional work from new faculty such as Dr. Sara O'Briens work on hormonal responses to endocrine disruptors and habitat fragmentation, Dr. Anthony Curtis' work on ultra-violet protective chemicals in insect carapaces, and Dr. Joy Caughron's investigation of novel immunocompetence assays for use in studies of wild songbirds. The Curie 341 laboratory renovation was completed in August of 2012, allowing move-in just prior to the start of the Fall 2012 semester. The space houses such equipment as a circular dichroism spectrometer, thermocycler, shaker incubator, oven incubator, autoclave, centrifuges, pH meter, water bath, Nanodrop spectrometer, refrigerator, -20?C freezer, and -80?C freezer. Since its renovation, this space has primarily been used for Biochemistry research. I have had approximately 4 students working with me each semester since moving into the space, with one working over the summer (as a part of the SURF program). These students have been working on the mutagenic analysis of E. coli beta-glucuronidase, an enzyme associated with some of the side-effects seen with certain cancer chemotherapy treatments. This space is also used by Dr. Joe Wirgau’s students, studying the treatment of iron overload with redox chemistry, particularly its use in bacterial cells. The space has also been used in collaborative projects with Dr. Francis Webster and in training for new methods with Dr. Jason Davis. All of these spaces have been used in support of undergraduate research students, primarily majoring in biology and chemistry. Graduating students often have plans to attend graduate and professional schools, and we have already seen four undergraduate researchers from these laboratories be accepted into PhD programs. These students are learning techniques in a wider range of cutting edge fields including site-directed mutagenesis, bacterial cell transformation and growth, protein and DNA expression and purification, and enzyme activity assays, hemagluttination, leukocyte counts and bacteriocidal assay metrics, advanced behavioral tracking and analysis, neurohistology and cytochemistry, hormone analysis and manipulation. We believe that these facilities have provided a unique and important proving ground in which our students can learn and engage in genuine cutting-edge scientfic research, better preparing them as scientists and analytic thinkers and encouraging their future success. Due to facility renovations we have seen a dramatic increase in undergraduate training/research - in the last year in excess of 25 students have used the combined facilities in the course of their independent research projects, in comparison to an average of less than ten students using it per year in past years. on this basis alone, we can confirm that the renovation has been an unmitigated success.
