Melissa Gibbs - US grants

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).

The proposal seeks funding to renovate a natural science research facility in the institution's Sage Hall. The project will result in 3370 sf of renovated research space serving the Chemistry and Biology Departments. The facility will provided renovated laboratories for Chemistry, Synthetic Chemistry, Computational Chemistry, Aquatic Biology, and Behavioral Neuroscience.

The institution is a small, private university serving 2,222 undergraduate students. Every natural sciences major must complete a research project that spans several semesters as a part of his or her degree requirements. Additional student research is supported by Stetson Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) grants, and SURE grantees must present their research at both professional conferences and Stetson's own campus-wide annual research symposium.

Research topics planned for the renovated labs include: the binding of organic thiophenes to copper centers with a goal of gaining a better understanding of the copper-thiophene interactions relevant to the desulfurization of fuels; the binding of alkenes to copper centers with a goal of understanding the chemistry of ethylene binding to the plant enzyme ETR1; curcumin and its role in inhibiting oxidative stress in biosystems; drug delivery hydrogels based upon copolymerization of 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) and 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA); the neural control of behavioral responses to taste input, the neurophysiology of the rat gustatory system, the influence of catfish biology on the impact of invasive loricariid catfish on a Florida ecosystem, and freshwater ecology.

In addition to providing infrastructure for research by faculty members, the renovation will result in an increase in research opportunities for students from Stetson and for students from a nearby State College who wish to spend a summer working on a research project.