In good company

When it comes to research, KU is in good company.

KU researchers recently won several large competitive grants, showing KU's growing strength as one of the nation's leading research universities. The grants also show that KU will collaborate with researchers at a number of prominent universities.

For example:

• KU along with Harvard University, Boston University and the University of Pittsburgh are the four National Institutes of Health-funded programs in the nation selected to develop so-called libraries of molecules, which help speed the development of new drugs. KU just received a $9.57 million National Institutes of Health grant to create a research center to develop the libraries. Professor Jeff Aube is the lead investigator. Other universities participating in the KU-led research include Iowa State and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

• KU will share an $8.5 million NIH grant with the University of Notre Dame in Indiana; Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; and the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston to form the Centers for Prevention of Child Neglect. The KU Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center and Juniper Gardens Children's Project will conduct research into child-neglect prevention in the Kansas City area.

• KU this month received its largest federal grant ever-$17 million from the National Science Foundation - to create one of the nation's 20 engineering research centers, the Center for Environmentally Beneficial Catalysis. The center will develop environmentally friendly and economically viable chemical processes for industry. The results of this "green chemistry" should help reduce or prevent pollution and waste created in the production of chemicals, such as those used in refining gasoline or dry-cleaning clothes. Additional funding streams and donated facilities as a result of the award are expected to bring the total package value to nearly $30 million.

The University of Iowa and Washington University in St. Louis are serving as KU's partners. To help diversify the pool of researchers in the field, the center also will establish partnerships with educational institutions that have high populations of Hispanic, African-American and Native American students, such as Garden City (Kan.) Community College, Kansas City Kansas Community College, Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, and the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras campus.

Professor Bala Subramaniam of the KU department of chemical and petroleum engineering is the CEBC director. Professor Daryle H. Busch of the KU Department of Chemistry is the deputy director.

Professor Bala Subramaniam

At a press conference to announce the grant, attended by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Sen. Pat Roberts and Congressman Dennis Moore, Chancellor Robert Hemenway noted that "this award is a testament to the University of Kansas' commitment to bring together technology and industry to produce tangible innovations that benefit the public."

Chancellor Robert Hemenway, Governor Kathleen Sebelius, and Professor Bala Subramaniam.

"In the world of engineering education, this is winning a BCS bowl or going to the basketball Final Four. This is what top-tier universities do," said Jim Roberts, interim vice provost for research and president and chief operating officer of the KU Center for Research.

Other grants KU has received recently include:

• Geophysicists at KU's Kansas Geological Survey received a $2.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to use a geophysical technique-seismic reflection-to study the movement of carbon dioxide being used to enhance oil production from a field in central Kansas. The grant is the largest single contract ever awarded to the survey.

• KU, in collaboration with Wichita State University, the University of Iowa, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iowa City, and Iowa State University, received a $1.47 million National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases planning grant for a Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research. The research and training activities of the regional centers will focus on infection with Category A biodefense agents, which are pathogens that have been identified as having the greatest potential for use as bioterrorism agents. The ultimate goal of the work performed, and the centers that will support it, will be to develop novel approaches to the diagnosis, treatment and/or prevention of these infections.

• KU received a $224,959 one-year grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create the Langston Hughes National Poetry Project at 20 sites nationwide. Maryemma Graham, professor of English, and Barbara Watkins, KU Continuing Education project manager, are co-directing the national project that extends the legacy of Langston Hughes, the African-American poet and writer, to sites in nine states and Washington, D.C. Hughes (1902-1967) lived in Lawrence and in Topeka during his childhood.

• The Kansas Health Foundation awarded two grants totaling more than $740,000 to help the KU School of Medicine-Wichita develop more public health leaders in the state.