ASU News - Bioscience / Biotech

Rittmann makes big challenges seem small

jkullman — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:52:37 -0700

Editor’s Note: This profile is one in a series that highlights Arizona State University’s 2008 and 2009 Regents’ Professors. The Regents’ Professor honor is the most prestigious faculty award at the university. Click here to view the complete list of awardees.

ASU’s Bruce Rittmann is living large and small at the same time.

He’s tackling some of the world’s biggest and most critical technological challenges with some of the tiniest tools.

Rittman directs the Center for Environmental Biotechnology in ASU’s Biodesign Institute and is a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering.

His biotechnology endeavors focus on microorganisms. These bacteria, algae, archaea and protozoa are too small to be seen by the naked eye, but have a huge impact on the ecology of the Earth and health of its inhabitants.

He and his research partners are using microorganisms to develop ways of providing the world more abundant and clean energy, ensuring the quality of water resources and improving human health.

Progress in the laboratory, along with knowledge of advances in biotechnology that Rittmann brings to the classroom, earned him a Regents’ Professor title earlier this year. It’s the highest honor bestowed on faculty at Arizona’s state universities.

Groundbreaking advances

Since coming to ASU five years ago, after more than a decade at Northwestern University, Rittmann has cemented his standing as a pioneer in work that combines engineering with chemistry and microbiology.

His textbook on environmental biotechnology, co-written with Perry McCarty, a Stanford University emeritus professor, is used in universities throughout the world.

Rittmann’s research results have had demonstrable widespread impact, says Peter Fox, an environmental engineering professor at ASU.

“Bruce’s work on the kinetics and design of biofilm reactors is groundbreaking,” he says. “It’s the basis for hundreds of design models used for practical design and fundamental research. His use of molecular biology for the analysis of biological reactors has become common practice today.“

Neal Woodbury, the deputy director of the Biodesign Institute, calls Rittmann “astounding for his ability to integrate the concepts of microbial ecology, fuel cell technology, water remediation and alternative energy together into a coherent package.”

Rittmann is extraordinary for more the “amazing range” of his expertise, says Paul Westerhoff, the interim director of the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment.

“Bruce is envisioning large-scale, long-range solutions that have the potential to greatly improve our environment,” Westerhoff says. “He is defining new frontiers in environmental biotechnology, and he is making this possible through his skill in collaborating with colleagues and mentoring students who are working in diverse areas of engineering and science. This productive interaction is Bruce’s signature trait. He motivates people to learn and contribute.”

In 2004, Rittmann was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a recipient of the Clarke Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Water Science and Technology, a winner of the prestigious Huber Research Prize and the Freese Award from American Society of Civil Engineers, and among some of the world’s most highly cited researchers in science and engineering journals.

Living in a microbial world

Those achievements stem largely from the depth and diversity of the work he describes simply as “managing microorganisms to provide service” to society.

He’s talking about an especially broad range of services.

Manipulating things at the microbial level is enabling development of renewable bioenergy resources that cause much less pollution than conventional fossil fuels.

For example, microbial fuel cells have the potential to provide clean energy by directly producing electricity or hydrogen from organic matter in waste streams.

Rittmann also is improving methods for removing an array of contaminants from water.

Such promising advances achieved by Rittmann and dozens of other engineers, chemists and biologists at ASU are attracting support from numerous public and private sources.

The reach extends into the medical realm. Rittmann and colleagues are partners with the Mayo Clinic in exploring links between the “microbial populations” in the human body and the risks of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, among other diseases and maladies.

Facing the avalanche

When he earned his doctorate in environmental engineering from Stanford University three decades ago, the areas in which Rittmann specializes were only just emerging from their infancy. Today, he says, these fields are exploding – giving engineers a sense of exhilaration but also intensifying their challenges.

“With all the new things arising so rapidly from science and engineering, our students need to learn all the old, fundamental things but they also need to know about the avalanche of new knowledge.”

On top of that, scientists and engineers who want to succeed in today’s working environment “need to be good communicators, writers and speakers, learn to work in teams and know about business,” Rittman says. “It’s a tumultuous time for us.”

New College student puts accent on research to help fight cancer

sdesgeor — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 16:47:17 -0700

Julie Furmick is going places. A senior-year life sciences major in Arizona State University’s New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Furmick is headed to the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS), on her way to being published in the prestigious Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, in line for a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R15 AREA grant, and is on the road to medical school and, quite possibly, a career in academic medicine.

Furmick, who graduated from Peoria Sunrise Mountain High School in 2006, is an ASU SOLUR (School of Life Sciences Undergraduate Research) participant and has been under the mentorship of Peter Jurutka, an assistant professor in the New College Division of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, for the past two years.

“Julie and her research exemplify the type of opportunities and achievements that can be attained by our students,” says Jurutka, who is also a founding faculty member of the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix in Partnership with ASU. “Her experience demonstrates that if students are intellectually curious and motivated, they can, with hard work, develop their own research goals and interests as undergraduates.”

The research being conducted by Furmick at the West campus – which is catching the attention of biomedical industry insiders – focuses on curtailing or alleviating altogether the side effects of Bexarotene, a secondary medication used to treat patients suffering from Cutaneous T-cell Lymphoma (CTCL). Her work won the Outstanding Student Research award in April at the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science annual research conference in Tucson. It is the same research she was invited to present at the recent ABRCMS meeting at the Phoenix Convention Center where she competed in the chemical science division. The conference is one of the largest professional meetings for biomedical and behavioral science students, attracting nearly 3,000 individuals, including 1,500 undergraduate students from as many as 300 colleges and universities across the country.

“We are working on developing a better anti-cancer drug that works by the same mechanism of Bexarotene, but does not cause the same bad side effects, such as red skin lesions, in our patients,” says Furmick, who is originally from New Jersey but grew up in the Valley. “So far, we have developed 27 compounds and found six that appear to work anywhere from 20 to 100 percent of the Bexarotene’s ability.”

Furmick’s findings were recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, which publishes original research on the correlation of molecular structure to biological activity with a focus on the relationships of chemistry to biological activity. Jurutka says he is waiting to hear from the NIH if her research will be funded in the future through an AREA (Academic Research Enhancement Award) grant.

As exciting as Furmick finds her research, she is just as enthused about the opportunities provided by New College and SOLUR, a program that promotes and facilitates opportunities for undergraduates to participate in biological research at ASU and around the Valley.

“I knew that I was interested in research, but I didn’t know that I could act on it as an undergraduate student,” she says. “There are so many great programs ASU offers to support undergraduate research.

“Not only does research allow students to get an inside look into the wide variety of career paths a degree in science can offer, but it also allows them to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it. They see first-hand how science works, instead of just reading about it in a textbook.”

Jurutka, a recipient of the Norwich-Eaton Young Investigator Research and the John Haddad Young Investigator awards, believes the undergraduate research focus in New College is an important benchmark of the West campus school.

“New College embraces an interdisciplinary liberal arts college model where classes are small and professors not only are active leading scholars in their fields, but also are accessible to the student population,” he says. “Because of the small classes and the direct accessibility to their professors, students are better able to determine their areas of interest prior to applying for research opportunities, making for a more successful and enjoyable research experience. Moreover, many of our faculty actively pursue research grants that favor student participation.”

In the meantime, Furmick plans to graduate in May 2010 with bachelor's degree in life sciences from New College. She hopes to follow her undergraduate degree with a master’s in biomedical ethics at ASU’s Tempe campus and, eventually attend medical school. She says Jurutka’s mentorship has been a guiding force in her journey.

“He always takes the time to make sure I understand the science behind my work,” she says. “It would be easier for him to simply give me a protocol and tell me to follow the directions but instead he takes the time to ask me why and when each step is important. This allows me to develop as a researcher, and from it I am able to do better and more complex experiments. I couldn’t have become as successful as I am without his guidance.”

For more informtion on the New College, visit newcollege.asu.edu.

For more information on SOLUR, visit sols.asu.edu/ugrad/research_programs.php.

Grants to help change how we generate, consume energy

cderra — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 15:26:21 -0700

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded Arizona State University two grants for alternative energy research that are part of a special DOE program to pursue high-risk, high-reward advances with the potential to change the way the nation generates and consumes energy.

ASU’s grants, totaling more than $10 million, are among 37 new DOE grants totaling $151 million to support the program.

ASU’s grants are for work on a new class of high-performance metal-air batteries and the use of photosynthetic bacteria to produce automotive fuel from a combination of sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.

“ASU is the only university to be heading up two of these highly competitive projects,” said Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan, ASU’s deputy vice president for research and economic affairs.

DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program has the goal of developing nimble, creative and inventive approaches to transform the global energy landscape while advancing America’s technology leadership.

In announcing the awards, U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu said “ARPA-E is a crucial part of the new effort by the U.S. to spur the next Industrial Revolution in clean energy technologies, creating thousands of new jobs and helping cut carbon pollution.” The program is generally considered as an effort to “hit a home run” in advanced alternative energy research.

Inspired by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, ARPA-E was created to support high-risk, high-reward research that can provide transformative new solutions for climate change and energy security. This first ARPA-E solicitation was highly competitive, with more than 3,600 concept papers received. Of that, some 300 were chosen for full application submissions and 37 were finally selected for funding. ASU is the only institution to lead more than one ARPA-E grant, from a pool of awardees that includes MIT, Stanford University, Michigan State University, E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., Ohio State University, Penn State University and United Technologies Research Center.

Panchanathan added that these grants, along with the high profile $14 million grant recently awarded by the DOE for an Energy Frontier Research Center, devoted to creating solar-generated biofuels, testifies to the rapidly emerging leadership of ASU in renewable energy research. ASU has been building up its portfolio in alternative energy research for several years and currently includes, among its capabilities, several advanced programs on solar energy research; one of the leading testing and certification centers for solar energy; and research into solar-generated biofuels including advanced work on algae-based biofuels.

ASU also has launched a new initiative called LightWorks by bringing together the intellectual expertise across the university centered on the idea of harnessing all that the sun has to offer as the ultimate power source of nature and using it to generate electricity, alternative fuels, new forms of lighting, even new medical and health-care devices.

The ASU ARPA-E awards will go toward:

Fuel from sunlight

A $5.2 million grant for two years will fund work on a form of photosynthetic bacteria called cyanobacteria that are modified to over-produce and secrete fatty acids for biofuel feedstocks using just sunlight, water and carbon dioxide as inputs. ASU researchers will work with scientists from North Carolina State University and Diversified Energy on the project.

The project essentially uses the cyanobacteria as biocatalysts for generating the fatty acids which, in turn, are secreted by the cyanobacteria. Fatty acids, a biofuel feedstock, then are used for producing “jet fuel, gasoline, even green diesel fuel,” said lead researcher Wim Vermaas, a professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences and the Center for Bioenergy and Photosynthesis.

The advantage of the new process is getting the cyanobacteria to secrete the fatty acids, Vermaas said.

“In the past, we had to ‘demolish the factory,’ basically break open the cyanobacteria, to get the product (lipids or fatty acids) out,” Vermaas said. “This process will avoid that because the bacteria secrete the product.”

As a result it would avoid much of the environmental drawbacks to current cyanobacteria or algae conversion processes by not generating leftover biomass – or waste product – when the organisms are cracked open, and avoiding the use of solvents and additional energy normally needed to extract the lipids or fatty acids from the photosynthetic microbes.

The project will lead to a higher efficiency in solar energy conversion to fuel and provide insight into ways to scale the process “so it has a significant impact on environmentally responsible, domestic production of fuels,” Vermaas said.

Co PIs on this project are: Roy Curtiss, Biodesign Institute; Bruce Rittmann, Biodesign Institute and Regents Professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering & Built Environment; David Nielsen, School of Mechanical, Aerospace, Chemical and Materials Engineering; Robert Roberson, School of Life Sciences; Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, School of Sustainable Engineering & Built Environment.

High-energy batteries

A grant of $5.1 million over two years will help support pursuit of advances in battery technology and energy storage led by Cody Friesen, an associate professor in the School of Mechanical, Aerospace, Chemical and Materials Engineering. ASU will work with researchers from Fluidic Energy Inc., on the project.

Friesen is developing a new type of ultra-high-energy metal-air batteries that use advanced ionic liquids and promise to provide low-cost, long-range power for all-electric and hybrid vehicles. In the long run, this advance could significantly reduce the need for the United States to import oil since more of the energy to power transportation could be drawn from the nation’s electrical grid.

“This has the potential to dramatically decrease the cost of energy storage,” Friesen said. “An electric-vehicle powered by these types of batteries would have a distance range comparable to that of a gasoline-powered vehicle. A cell phone could remain powered for as long as a month without recharging.”

Friesen sees the combination of efforts at the university to advance solar power and energy-storage technologies “demonstrating a holistic approach to energy research that is making ASU a global leader in renewable energy advances.”

Co PIs on this project are Dan Buttry, chemistry and biochemistry; and Karl Sieradzki, School of Mechanical, Aerospace, Chemical and Materials Engineering.

“We need to come up with new, imaginative and elegant ways of generating energy, and smarter ways of consuming that energy so we are not depleting resources and harming our environment,” said Panchanathan. “These projects strive to achieve all of that.”

Engineering new approaches to cancer research

jkullman — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:19:34 -0600

Deirdre Meldrum, dean of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, is a key member of a team leading a new Arizona State University research center that will embark on a novel approach to understanding and treating cancer.

Meldrum directs the Center for Ecogenomics at ASU’s Biodesign Institute. The center will play a role in work for the new Center for Convergence of Physical Science and Cancer Biology at ASU.

It’s one of 12 Physical Sciences-Oncology Centers being supported by the National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health, to pursue development of new methods of arresting tumor growth and metastasis in the fight against cancer.

Research at the Center for Ecogenomic focuses in part on the study of the fundamental mechanisms governing the birth, growth and decline of human cells with the aim of better understanding and finding ways to combat the most widespread diseases and other threats to human health.

ASU’s new cancer research center will use technology developed in Meldrum’s ecogenomics lab, specifically a medical imaging technology called cell CT. Pioneered by researcher Roger Johnson and Alan Nelson, it enables true three-dimensional computed tomography imaging of individual cancer cells.

For more information visit: http://asunews.asu.edu/20091026_ASUcancer

Researchers create molecular diode

lccampb — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:03:49 -0600

Recently, at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute, N.J. Tao and collaborators have found a way to make a key electrical component on a phenomenally tiny scale. Their single-molecule diode is described in this week’s online edition of Nature Chemistry.

In the electronics world, diodes are a versatile and ubiquitous component. Appearing in many shapes and sizes, they are used in an endless array of devices and are essential ingredients for the semiconductor industry. Making components including diodes smaller, cheaper, faster and more efficient has been the holy grail of an exploding electronics field, now probing the nanoscale realm.

Smaller size means cheaper cost and better performance for electronic devices. The first-generation computer CPU used a few thousand transistors, Tao says noting the steep advance of silicon technology.

“Now even simple, cheap computers use millions of transistors on a single chip.”

But lately, the task of miniaturization has become much more difficult, and the famous dictum known as Moore’s law – which states that the number of silicon-based transistors on a chip doubles every 18 to 24 months – will eventually reach its physical limits.

“Transistor size is reaching a few tens of nanometers, only about 20 times larger than a molecule,” Tao says. “That’s one of the reasons people are excited about this idea of molecular electronics.”

Diodes are critical components for a broad array of applications, from power conversion equipment to radios, logic gates, photodetectors and light-emitting devices. In each case, diodes are components that allow current to flow in one direction around an electrical circuit but not the other. For a molecule to perform this feat, Tao says it must be physically asymmetric, with one end capable of forming a covalent bond with the negatively charged anode and the other with the positive cathode terminal.

The new study compares a symmetric molecule with an asymmetric one, detailing the performance of each in terms of electron transport.

“If you have a symmetric molecule, the current goes both ways, much like an ordinary resistor,” Tao says. This is potentially useful, but the diode is a more important (and difficult) component to replicate.

The idea of surpassing silicon limits with a molecule-based electronic component has been around awhile. “Theoretical chemists Mark Ratner and Ari Aviram proposed the use of molecules for electronics such as diodes back in 1974,” Tao says, adding “people around the world have been trying to accomplish this for more than 30 years.”

Most efforts to date have involved many molecules, Tao says, referring to molecular thin films. Only very recently have serious attempts been made to surmount the obstacles to single-molecule designs. One of the challenges is to bridge a single molecule to at least two electrodes supplying current to it. Another challenge involves the proper orientation of the molecule in the device.

“We are now able to do this – to build a single molecule device with a well-defined orientation,” Tao says.

The technique developed by Tao’s group relies on a property known as AC modulation.

“Basically, we apply a little, periodically varying mechanical perturbation to the molecule,” Tao says. “If there’s a molecule bridged across two electrodes, it responds in one way. If there’s no molecule, we can tell.”

The interdisciplinary project involved Luping Yu, a professor at the University of Chicago, who supplied the molecules for study, as well as theoretical collaborator, Ivan Oleynik, a professor from the University of South Florida. The team used conjugated molecules, in which atoms are stuck together with alternating single and multiple bonds. Such molecules display large electrical conductivity and have asymmetrical ends capable of spontaneously forming covalent bonds with metal electrodes to create a closed circuit.

The project’s results raise the prospect of building single molecule diodes – the smallest devices one can ever build.

“I think it’s exciting because we are able to look at a single molecule and play with it,” Tao says. “We can apply a voltage, a mechanical force, or optical field, measure current and see the response. As quantum physics controls the behaviors of single molecules, this capability allows us to study properties distinct from those of conventional devices.”

Chemists, physicists, materials researchers, computational experts and engineers all play a central role in the emerging field of nanoelectronics, where a zoo of available molecules with different functions provide the raw material for innovation. Tao also is examining the mechanical properties of molecules – more specifically, their ability to oscillate. Binding properties between molecules make them attractive candidates for a new generation of chemical sensors.

“Personally, I am interested in molecular electronics not because of their potential to duplicate today’s silicon applications,” Tao says. Instead, molecular electronics will benefit from unique electronic, mechanical, optical and molecular binding properties that set them apart from conventional semiconductors. This may lead to applications complementing rather than replacing silicon devices.

Richard Harth, richard.harth@asu.edu
Biodesign Institute

Outfoxing pox: Developing a new class of vaccine candidates

lccampb — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:18:17 -0600

In the annals of medicine, Edward Jenner’s 1796 vaccination of a young boy against smallpox, using fluid from cowpox blisters, remains a landmark case. In a new study, Kathryn Sykes, a researcher at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute and her colleagues have taken a fresh look at cowpox.

Their findings, appearing in the advanced online issue of Virology, demonstrate that this ancient pathogen still has much to teach us, and may hasten development of novel vaccines against smallpox and other pox-like diseases.

Sykes says that poxviruses, in addition to their importance for human health, provide an ideal framework for investigating protective antigens – parts of the virus that can be used to develop a vaccine – by means of modern, high-throughput genomic and proteomic screening technologies.

“If you study viruses such as ebola or HIV, their genomes contain a small number of genes – maybe just three to nine,” she says, noting that this is too small for the purposes of demonstrating a capacity for high-throughput functional screening. Other pathogens such as malaria, which boast tens of millions of nucleotides, are too large.

“We wanted something in the middle that could demonstrate our high-throughput technologies, but not blow us away before we had a few protocols in place,” she says. “Poxviruses are the Goldilocks case. At around 220 genes, they are just right.”

In the current study, Sykes’ team used functional screening of cowpox to identify new vaccine candidates against similar viruses. These were compared with 4-pox – a vaccine comprised of four protective genes from a close genetic relative of cowpox called the vaccinia virus. The team found that the identified antigens offered superior protection in a cowpox challenge compared with the 4-pox vaccine. The 4-pox vaccine was developed by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) as an alternative to the licensed vaccine against smallpox, known as Dryvax, (which is made from live vaccinia and presents significant risk for those with suppressed immune systems).

By rapidly screening the whole viral genome, Sykes’ group attempts to isolate genes necessary for an effective vaccine. This subunit vaccine approach is in contrast to traditional vaccine methods, where scientists use a weakened form of a live, whole-virus strain.

“The dogma among old-fashioned vaccinologists is that you want to make a vaccine that recreates the immune responses that happens upon natural infection,” Sykes says. But pathogens like poxviruses also contain elements that can help the virus evade or in some cases, subvert the host’s immune system. Subunit vaccines make use of only those genomic segments known to be immunogenic, provoking a robust immune response without the danger of initiating disease.

The tricky part is identifying the effective subunits. Using a process known as expression library immunization, the entire cowpox genetic library was separated into pools and tested in comparison with the 4-pox vaccine for protective effect in a mouse model. In all, the team identified nine new protective components. Sykes stresses that the majority of new candidates would not have been identified through traditional methods, where scientists focus on a viral gene because of its function or surface exposed location.

“The power of this technology is that it’s assumption-free with respect to what should be a vaccine candidate.”

To further boost the immune response, Sykes recommends using a gene gun to deliver the subunit vaccines, a process in which protective antigens are shot directly into the cytoplasm of immunogenic skin cells, (rather than injected by needle into muscle cells, which are not themselves immunogenically active). Such gene gun delivery provides a highly effective mechanism for delivering antigens to the immune system.

Sykes emphasizes that a single viral subunit will likely not offer comprehensive protection. Rather, suites of antigens must work together synergistically. Further high-throughput, rapid vaccine development research will focus on identifying such cooperative antigen groups.

“We need to come up with empirical ways of determining which antigens are working together,” Sykes says. “There’s your highly effective subunit vaccine.”

The application of subunit component vaccine strategies for other diseases, including tularemia, African swine fever virus, and even cancer also is under investigation.

“If you think of a tumor cell as a pathogen, then you want to take that tumor cell and treat it the same way we treated cowpox – by screening all of its potential antigens and testing them,” Sykes says.

Richard Harth, richard.harth@asu.edu
Biodesign Institute

Marchant to address research forum at ASU

shibner — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:08:04 -0600

Professor Gary Marchant, executive director of the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law's Center for the Study of Law, Science, & Technology, will participate in a Personalized Medicine Research Forum on Oct. 23, in the auditorium at the ASU Biodesign Institute, 727 E. Tyler St., on the east side of the Tempe campus.

The forum is sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Affairs at ASU and will feature discussions about a variety of topics relevant to personalized medicine, including health information technology, law and policy, and biomarker research and diagnostics.

Marchant's research interests include the use of genetic information in environmental regulation, risk and the precautionary principle, legal aspects of personalized medicine, and regulation of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, neuroscience and biotechnology. He teaches courses in Environmental Law, Law, Science & Technology, Genetics and the Law, Biotechnology: Science, Law and Policy, and Nanotechnology Law & Policy. He also is a professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences.

Janie Magruder, Jane.Magruder@asu.edu
(480) 727-9052
Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law

Rittmann receives Arizona BioIndustry's top research award

jkullman — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:47:38 -0600

Bruce Rittmann, a professor in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, a part of the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, has won the 2009 Award for Research Excellence from the Arizona BioIndustry Association.

Rittmann is director of the Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute at ASU.

He is an international leader in using microbes found in nature in ways that can benefit the environment or human health. His research team tackles some of the world’s leading problems related to water, waste and energy.

Their research projects include pollution cleanup, treating water and wastewater, capturing renewable energy and understanding how microbes in the digestive system may be linked to obesity, as well as other efforts.

Rittmann also was honored this year with the Simon W. Freese Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Environmental Water and Resource Institute, for his innovative work on using microorganisms to improve water quality.

Especially noteworthy is the membrane biofilm reactor, a technology now being commercialized to destroy a wide range of pollutants found in waters and wastewaters. This technology can remove harmful contaminants such as perchlorate, nitrates and arsenate from water and soils – problems that are vital to the future of the Southwest, where the Colorado River water is used by seven states.

Rittmann is part of an ASU research team using two innovative approaches to renewable bioenergy: harnessing anaerobic microbes to convert biomass to useful energy forms, such as methane, hydrogen or electricity; and using photosynthetic bacteria or algae to capture sunlight and produce new biomass that can be turned into liquid fuels, like biodiesel.

To improve human health, his research team’s collaboration with the Methuselah Foundation is exploring how to mitigate aging by identifying naturally occurring microbes to clean up the "junk" that accumulates in our bodies.

In addition, in an innovative study with partner Mayo Clinic Arizona, Rittmann’s group explored the causes of obesity by identifying microbial communities to offer new clues in the body weight differences in average, obese and gastric bypass subjects.

Writer: Joe Caspermeyer, Biodesign Institute at ASU

International spotlight on ASU spinal cord research

jkullman — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:47:59 -0600

The Irish Times reported on a featured lecture by ASU bioengineering professors Ranu Jung and James Abbas at the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI Galway).

Jung and Abbas, associate professors in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering in ASU’s Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, are co-directors of the university’s Center for Adaptive Neural Systems. The center focuses on developing and utilizing new scientific knowledge and engineering technology to address physiological, medical and societal problems presented by neurological disabilities.

For the lecture series hosted by the National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science at NUI Galway, Jung and Abbas gave a presentation about their work on repair and recovery after spinal cord injury.

Nobel Prize winner Hartwell to lead major ASU health initiative

jcasper — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 17:28:45 -0600

Arizona State University announces the appointment of Nobel Prize winner Dr. Leland “Lee” H. Hartwell to lead an expansive effort addressing two of today’s top concerns: improving the effectiveness of health care while reducing its costs, and advancing science education.

Hartwell becomes the first Nobel Prize recipient in physiology or medicine to serve a faculty appointment at an Arizona university. He will establish and co-direct the Center for Sustainable Health at ASU’s Biodesign Institute as ASU’s second Virginia G. Piper Chair of Personalized Medicine. The new center is the latest step in the evolution of the Arizona-based Partnership for Personalized Medicine, launched by Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust with $35 million in 2007. Piper Trust has provided an additional $2.5 million for the new center.

“Dr. Hartwell already has transformed one worldview of science, earning a 2001 Nobel Prize for insights into the genes that control cell growth,” says ASU President Michael Crow. “ASU provides a dynamic environment that will support the type of big ideas he has to help shape health care in the coming decade.”

Hartwell’s new center in the Biodesign Institute will identify biomarkers – early indicators of disease – to enable personalized, pre-symptomatic diagnoses, and it will develop tools for providing the intelligence needed for better patient outcomes. It will interface with other Biodesign centers working on complementary aspects of these goals.

“In the current health care debate, higher quality and lower cost often are positioned as opposing weights on a scale, but Dr. Hartwell’s efforts are aimed at identifying the strategies and technologies that can simultaneously achieve both,” says Biodesign Institute Executive Director Alan Nelson.

A key aspect of Hartwell’s efforts will be redefining health outcomes metrics, encompassing expanded considerations such as the environmental, educational and socio-political impacts on health. He will be assisted in this effort by Michael Birt, a health policy expert who has been recruited to co-direct the new center.

“Health care metrics – particularly in the U.S. – have too long been focused on narrow aspects of cost and quality indicators that have led to an overemphasis on treatment rather than prevention, and a lack of effective tools for clinical decision making,” Hartwell says. “Dr. Birt and I will lead efforts to address these challenges, integrating all key stakeholders to create more effective solutions.”

Hartwell is no stranger to Arizona, having served as executive chairman of the Partnership for Personalized Medicine since its creation. The partnership includes the Biodesign Institute, Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Hartwell currently is president and director of the Hutchinson Center.

“The trustees of Piper Trust have placed the foundation’s biggest bet ever on Dr. Lee Hartwell and his vision of the future of health care,” says Judy Mohraz, president of Piper Trust. “We are delighted that he will soon be at ASU rubbing shoulders with scientists, health-care policy makers and students on a routine basis.”

Hartwell has announced he will retire from his post at the Hutchinson Center in June 2010. He will then assume his ASU tenured faculty appointment. During the coming academic year, he will begin preliminary preparations for the new center during a phased transition approved by Hutchinson Center. Birt will begin immediately, handling daily operations and start up.

Hartwell will have several academic appointments at ASU. His interest in advancing science education will be furthered serving as a tenured professor in the College of Teacher Education and Leadership. “We must educate the world on the challenges facing future generations and on the role of science and technology in meeting those challenges,” Hartwell says. Other tenured appointments include ASU’s School of Life Sciences and School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, areas critical to his sustainable health initiative.

Birt, who was recruited along with Hartwell as a linchpin in co-directing Biodesign’s new Center for Sustainable Health, is an internationally renowned health-care policy leader. Birt is senior vice president, Health and Society at The National Bureau of Asian Research; executive director of the Pacific Health Summit; and executive director of the Forum for Personal Health. He also holds the position of affiliate investigator at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He has consulted for many of the world’s leading health care, medical technology and consumer product companies. At ASU, he also will serve as professor of practice in the School of Health Care Management and Policy in the W.P. Carey School of Business.