Awards by Sponsor:
January 1, 2014 through January 31, 2014

SPONSOR	NO. OF AWARDS	AWARDS AMOUNT
National Institutes of Health	60	$11,583,092
National Science Foundation	4	$234,922
Department of Education	2	$1,388,696
Department of Defense	16	$1,669,378
Department of Energy	10	$1,412,667
Department of Agriculture	10	$1,895,047
Department of Labor	2	$315,188
National Aeronautics and Space Administration	5	$257,842
Other Federal	13	$1,541,268
Total Federal	122	$20,298,100
Industry	187	$4,650,958
State of Ohio	7	$889,830
Private Agencies	37	$1,978,212
Colleges and Universities	2	$19,313
Other Non-Federal	8	$271,841
Total Non-Federal	241	$7,810,154
TOTAL	363	$28,108,254

Ohio State co-founds high-tech manufacturing institute

As part of President Barack Obama's initiative to boost the manufacturing sector, a public-private consortium of universities, companies and nonprofits co-founded by EWI, the University of Michigan and Ohio State, will establish a $148 million high-tech manufacturing research institute. The Department of Defense awarded the team $70 million for the new institute. The state of Ohio has committed $10 million and the Ohio State College of Engineering has committed $5 million to the project. The remainder of the $148 million for the institute will come from other team members. The American Lightweight Materials Manufacturing Innovation Institute (ALMMII) was created in response to a solicitation from the U.S. Navy that focused on lightweight and modern metals. ALMMII will help develop advanced lightweight materials and technology for use in everything from new hulls for Navy ships to lighter and safer automobiles that are more energy efficient. The technologies and materials developed by ALMMII will also be transitioned to commercial firms, including small and medium-sized businesses. With more than 10,000 jobs expected to be created in the Midwest region, Kentucky, Tennessee and Indiana will invest with Michigan and Ohio in the workforce development aspects of the project. The institute will be headquartered near Detroit, but will draw heavily from Ohio State and EWI assets in Columbus.

Discovery Themes initiative releases second request for proposals

Three areas have been identified for the second round of Discovery Themes funding: Emerging and Re-emerging Diseases, Food to Improve Health and Materials for a Sustainable World. Support will be provided for new tenured or tenure-track faculty in core/theoretical and/or transformative/translational areas. In addition, infrastructure, equipment and programmatic needs will be provided for the community of faculty working in the area.

Emerging and Re-emerging Diseases will focus on filling key knowledge gaps in our understanding of the factors driving the emergence/re-emergence of diseases; innovative strategies to prevent or lessen diseases; rapid detection and real time response; and translating the why and how of emergence, disease dynamics, risk and host factors into novel solutions to reduce the burden of diseases and enhance health. Materials for a Sustainable World will focus on novel and emergent materials, simulation, design and modeling; materials for renewable energy generation and storage; materials for energy-efficient systems; and materials to conserve energy and reduce our carbon footprint. Food to Improve Health will focus on the identification of foods/food components that prevent or treat acute and chronic disease; personal and community health and wellness promotion and education; improving food safety via a systems approach; and food availability and security. 

Plan to attend an information session to learn more about the RFP. Information session dates and locations as well as a list of FAQs can be found on the Discovery Themes website.

Proposal Deadlines: This is a two-step process. A designated faculty team leader must submit his or her name, a draft proposal title and the area of submission to rfpdiscoverythemes@osu.edu by 5 p.m. on March 28, 2014. Full proposals are due by 5 p.m. on May 30, 2014.

Third Frontier continues to advance cutting-edge technology

The Ohio Third Frontier Commission approved more than $15.8 million to fund cutting-edge technology companies and start-ups, with more than $5.3 million going to central Ohio. The Columbus Collaboratory, a multi-industry partnership, received $5 million from the Ohio Third Frontier Technology Asset Grant Program to establish a central location where companies can work together and develop tools to perform advanced analytics and improve cybersecurity. American Electric Power, Battelle, Cardinal Health, Huntington Bank, L Brands, Nationwide and OhioHealth will invest $20 million in the project. The collaboratory is expected to create 100 new jobs over the next five years.

The Ohio Third Frontier Technology Validation and Start-up Fund awards grants in two phases. Phase 1 involves technology validation such as prototyping to move the technology to the point of licensing and commercialization. Ohio State will receive $50,000 to research an improved method of cancer diagnosis. Phase 2 supports Ohio start-up companies that have licensed technology developed at Ohio higher education and nonprofit research institutions. Four start-up companies that have licensed Ohio State technology will each receive $100,000 awards. SimpleFill, Inc., plans to complete the development of and test a new fueling system for compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles. ProteoSense, LLC, is working to commercialize a new type of handheld sensor for use in the food industry that tests for salmonella and provides results without having to send samples to an external lab. 3Bar Biologics, Inc., plans to further develop proprietary microorganisms for use in agriculture. QuTel, Inc., will prototype a technology that can lead to improved performance of semiconductor chips while significantly lowering their power consumption.

Hirata wins top prize for young astronomers

Christopher Hirata, professor of astronomy and physics, has won the Helen B. Warner Prize for observational or theoretical research from the American Astronomical Society – the premier award for young astronomers who are rising stars in the field. The selection committee cited Hirata’s “remarkable cosmological studies, particularly his observational and theoretical work on weak gravitation lensing, as one of the most important tools for assessing the distribution of mass in the universe." In 2012, Hirata received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the highest honor given by the U.S. government to science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their research careers. At age 13, Hirata was the youngest American ever to win the International Physics Olympiad.

Stewart receives NSF CAREER Award

Christopher Stewart, assistant professor of computer science and engineering, has received a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program recognizes and supports the early career-development activities of those teacher-scholars who are most likely to become the academic leaders of the 21st century. The five-year award provides $500,000 in support for Stewart’s research project, “Carbon Footprint Modeling and Elastic Caching for Greening Services,” which addresses a common issue facing cloud systems: Dirty, carbon-intensive energy is cost effective, but not environmentally sustainable. His research employs performance modeling and autonomic computing to prototype high-performance cloud systems that are sustainable and scalable.

Neuroscientist garners 2014 Sloan Fellowship

Julie Golomb, assistant professor of psychology and director of Ohio State’s Vision and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, has been awarded a 2014 Alfred Sloan Fellowship. She joins 126 outstanding U.S. and Canadian early-career scientists and scholars identified as the next generation of scientific leaders. Candidates are nominated by their fellow scientists and are selected by an independent panel of senior scholars on the basis of independent research accomplishments, creativity and potential to become a leader in their field. Golomb’s research explores the interactions between visual attention, memory, perception and eye movements. Golomb is the only Sloan Fellow chosen from Ohio.

Engineering students design next-gen stormwater filter

Water Quality Solutions, a Columbus-based start-up company, needed a viable solution to filter pollutants from roadway stormwater after the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency banned the current system of sand-filled exfiltration trenches used statewide. The company teamed up with senior engineering students in the College of Engineering’s Multidisciplinary Capstone Design Program to create a practical and cost-effective next generation stormwater filtration system that would meet Clean Water Act requirements for local roadways and highway stormwater. The students spent two years designing, building and testing preproduction prototypes of a new stormwater filter system. They developed a cost-effective, low-maintenance device that met current Environmental Protection Agency filtration requirements and could be installed in existing standard catch basins. The new patent-pending system will be manufactured and assembled in Ohio from recycled plastic and Ohio-made components. According to Peter Rogers, the students' adviser and clinical professor of biomedical engineering, “Our industry partners get cost-effective product design help to solve a very specific problem, while our students develop their engineering skills and have the satisfaction of making a real world impact.”

Studying the relationship between zinc, cadmium and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

Darren Knoell, Charles H. Kimberly Professor in Pharmacy, has received a $750,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to support the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) goal of producing scientific evidence on the detrimental effects of tobacco use. Knoell will lead researchers from the College of Pharmacy, the Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, the University of Cincinnati and the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute as they investigate the role of zinc in mitigating the damage done by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) caused by smoking. The team will also analyze the role that cadmium, a toxic metal found in cigarettes, has on the development of COPD. According to Knoell, “These findings could provide stimulus for the FDA to regulate cadmium levels in cigarettes, allow physicians to conduct tests to more conclusively show patients how smoking will increase their chances of COPD and propose treatment options that can reduce the effects of and chances of developing COPD.”

NASA funds testing of deep-ice temperatures

Ohio State researchers have received a three-year, $3 million National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant to develop technology that can determine temperatures deep under Greenland’s ice sheet from airplanes or spacecraft. The resulting data could provide a glimpse into the potential impacts of climate warming on sea levels. Greenland and Antarctica’s glaciers contain about 70 percent of the world’s fresh water, and gauging temperatures deep beneath their surface is critical to predicting how they might evolve. Current models predict that sea levels should rise by about one meter by the year 2100. Such an increase would have a significant impact on coastal communities, ocean temperatures and global weather. Joel Johnson, professor of electrical and computer engineering and principal investigator of the study, leads a multidisciplinary, multi-university team that includes scientists from the University of Washington and the National Research Council in Italy. The scientists are designing a specialized microwave radiometer that will receive naturally occurring low-frequency microwaves given off by the ice sheets, making it possible to determine the temperature of ice hundreds of meters below the surface without boring holes.

Two CFAES students named Borlaug Fellows

College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CFAES) graduate students Patrick Bell (School of Environment and Natural Resources) and Anna Testen (Department of Plant Pathology) were named U.S. Borlaug Fellows in Global Food Security, a program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The Borlaug Fellows program fosters leadership and scientific expertise among U.S. graduate students to effectively study and promote sustainable food systems in developing countries. The grant will support Bell’s ongoing research with faculty at the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro to improve Tanzania’s soil quality. Testen will study soil health and tomato diseases with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture.

"Smart cards" improve protection of consumer data

Data breaches like the one recently experienced by Target Corp. amplify the need to find solutions that better protect consumer data. Funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Paul Berger, professor of electrical and computer engineering and physics, is joining Finnish researchers in an effort to develop an alternative to magnetic strips on credit and debit cards that would result in more secure data. Berger has spent 15 years developing “quantum tunneling” technology, which would be used to create a flexible plastic card with micro-antennae that turn radio frequencies into voltage, powering a printed plastic circuit, turning a credit or debit card into a simple computer with a better encryption algorithm. Berger hopes to license and promote the technology through his Ohio State spin-off company, QuTel, Inc.

EPA deploys sustainability model developed by Fiksel

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is utilizing the Triple Value Model, a “systems approach” developed by Joseph Fiksel, research associate professor of integrated systems engineering and executive director of the Center for Resilience at Ohio State, and his colleagues at the U.S. EPA and Ohio State. The Triple Value Model is an innovative framework that depicts the dynamic linkages and resource flows among industrial, societal and environmental systems. The U.S. EPA has begun using this model to support transdisciplinary research projects that focus on water resources, communities and other broad sustainability themes. Fiksel is currently serving as special assistant for sustainability at the EPA.

Ohio State/Signet Accel to accelerate data sharing worldwide

Ohio State has signed an exclusive worldwide deal with Signet Accel, LLC, a new company formed by Signet Enterprises, to license a portfolio of Ohio State-developed software technologies for health care data sharing and advanced analytics. The technology will enable the rapid and efficient analysis of all types of health care data, allowing providers, patients and health care companies to enhance wellness and make treatment decisions based on the most current information. The technologies were developed by the co-founders of the new company, Philip Payne, chair of biomedical informatics, and Peter Embi, vice chair of biomedical informatics. The company plans to locate near the Ohio State campus, allowing it to take advantage of the university’s highly skilled biomedical and computational workforce. Provost Joseph Steinmetz said, “Most research and industry sectors see the value of leveraging big data and realize how instrumental the analysis is to the progress of our global society. The foundations of the university’s first Discovery Themes initiative is comprised on research involving data analytics. Ohio State continues to focus on data analytics and providing opportunities for students and researchers to further explore this ever-expanding field.”

Celebrate the Ohio State/COSI Partnership

Ohio State’s partnership with COSI is broad, deep and continually expanding. The OSU@COSI Symposium Series celebrates the breadth and depth of this unique and nationally-recognized partnership. Each installment in the series will highlight one of the myriad ways in which Ohio State faculty and students bring research to life at COSI.

Join us for the inaugural symposium on March 21, 2014, to learn how Ohio State researchers work with COSI to enhance their research programs by using COSI as a venue for data collection. Meet the groups from the Labs in Life, Ohio State’s working research laboratories at COSI. Hear from faculty and students who collect their research data in other areas at COSI and learn how COSI can help you recruit participants for your research. The event will take place from 3-5 p.m. at COSI, 333 W. Broad Street, Columbus, OH, 43215. Register today.

HR PeopleSoft upgrade to impact sponsored project personnel salary adjustments

In May 2014, the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) will be re-implementing PeopleSoft, the university’s human resources and student information systems. The conversion will impact sponsored project personnel salary adjustments. There will be a significant change in the prior period personnel adjustment functionality (Personnel Expenditure Transfers, or PETs). While the business process will remain essentially the same, adjustments for pay periods prior to June 1, 2014, will not be allowed. Visit the Office of Sponsored Programs website for a list of pre-implementation and post-implementation steps that can be taken to minimize PET challenges.

New and revised IACUC policies posted

The Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) has updated several policies in response to outside program reviews. Updated policies include “Movement of Animals Outside the Animal Housing Location,” Housing Requirements for Animals” and “Validate the Effectiveness of Manual Sanitation.” All policies are available online.

Undergraduate Research Office annual report available

The Undergraduate Research Office (URO) has published its 2013 Annual Report which documents substantial increases in undergraduate research achievements at Ohio State, as well as the URO’s strategy for facilitating these opportunities. The URO serves undergraduates in all academic disciplines and works to integrate the university’s dual missions of teaching and research.

U.S. Scholars Program open for 2015-2016

The core Fulbright U.S. Scholars Program is open for 2015-2016. The core program provides 800 U.S. faculty and professionals with annual opportunities to lecture and conduct research abroad. Fulbright awards for U.S. scholars are sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and administered by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. Ohio State faculty and professional staff should contact the Office of International Affairs for more information. The submission deadline is August 1, 2014.

Free online herbs and dietary supplements training

The Center for Integrative Health and Wellness has launched 14 online modules titled “Introduction to Herbs and Dietary Supplements across the Lifespan,” which provide cost-effective, online education suitable for a wide audience interested in continuing education and professional development in integrative health and wellness. Through March 31, 2014, all modules are free to Ohio State students and faculty. Use your Ohio State email address for registration, and be sure to check “student” or “faculty” to receive free access.