This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This award supports the renovation of 7,695 square feet of wet laboratories for the conduct of research on Biological Materials and Processes (BioMaP) in the Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE) department at Iowa State University (ISU). The BioMaP research facility is located in a campus building built in 1964, which was not designed to accommodate the increasing amount and complexity of BioMaP research in CBE in recent years; the twenty individual laboratories in the facility have very limited counter space, and the chemical fume hoods are old, energy inefficient, and some unusable. This project will install (a) two plume style fume hood exhaust fans on the roof of the research facility for fume hoods in this facility to operate in a safe and energy-efficient manner, (b) electrical upgrades, (c) a deionized (DI) water system to provide DI water to the entire facility, (d) additional cabinet/counter space and new chemical fume hoods/biological safety cabinets, and (e) fiber optic lines for high speed high bandwidth computer connectivity for high performance computing research.
Intellectual Merit: The BioMaP research at ISU is leading to new breakthroughs in sustainable biorenewable sources of energy, as well as chemicals, that is vital to reducing dependence on petrochemical products. BioMaP research areas include polymeric biomaterials, cellular dynamics, catalysis/biocatalysis, nanotechnology, and computational materials/biology. Upgrading the research infrastructure will enable collaborative, interdisciplinary BioMaP research, impact productivity of ongoing and future research, and create the next-generation research space for faculty and students. It will also enable research training of a larger number of students and a diverse student body in these cutting edge areas to prepare them for the future critical needs of the nation.
Broader Impacts: The renovations will significantly impact fourteen faculty, sixty graduate students, seventy undergraduate students, and twelve postdoctoral researchers. Additionally, the renovations will enhance the diversity of the students since the BioMaP faculty are leading two NSF-funded REU programs that use the facility, are involved in several programs to aggressively promote student diversity, and work in the NSF-supported Engineering Research Center focused on Chemicals from Biorenewables (CBiRC). Another significant benefit of the renovated facility will be a 40 percent reduction in energy usage for fume hoods, leading to a more sustainable facility.
This project involved renovating a 7695 sq. ft. wet laboratory research facility in the Chemical and Biological Engineering (CBE) department at Iowa State University (ISU) focused on "Biological Materials and Processes" (BioMaP). The BioMaP research facility is located in a building built in 1964 and was not designed to accommodate the increasing amount and complexity of BioMaP research in CBE in recent years; the twenty individual laboratories in the facility had very limited counter space; the chemical fume hoods were old, energy inefficient, and some were unusable. This project rectified those serious deficiencies through (a) installation of two plume style fume hood exhaust fans on the roof of the research facility for fume hoods in this facility to operate in a safe and energy-efficient manner; (b) electrical upgrades in the research facility; (c) a deionized (DI) water system to provide DI water to the entire research facility; and (d) extensive renovation of specific laboratory spaces in the facility to facilitate collaborative interdisciplinary BioMaP research, with increased cabinet/counter space and new chemical fume hoods/biological safety cabinets. Highly collaborative interdisciplinary BioMaP research activities are being carried out in the renovated facility, in the areas of polymeric biomaterials, cellular dynamics, catalysis/biocatalysis, nanotechnology, and computational materials/biology. BioMaP faculty are pioneering new therapeutic and diagnostic technologies that will catalyze our ability to treat cancer, and new and emerging infectious diseases. The BioMaP research at ISU is leading to new breakthroughs in sustainable biorenewable sources of energy as well as chemicals, that is vital to reducing our dependence on petrochemical products. Upgrading the research infrastructure was critical and is already significantly enabling collaborative interdisciplinary BioMaP research, is impacting productivity of ongoing and future research, and has created the next-generation research space for students and faculty to enable scientific breakthroughs in the BioMaP area. It is also enabling research training of a larger number of students and a more diverse student body in these cutting edge research areas to prepare them for the future critical needs of the Nation.
