The grant titled "Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI): Characterization of the Manganese Centers of Oxalate Oxidase from Ceriporipsis subvermispora," will integrate the excitement of laboratory-based scientific discovery into undergraduate education at GSC.
The grant is under the direction of Dr. Ellen Moomaw, GSC Assistant Professor of Chemistry and will advance the understanding of the relationship between protein structure and function while promoting teaching, learning, and training at GSC.
This is the first major grant to fund laboratory research that GSC has received, and it brings GSC into a new relationship with the NSF, said Moomaw, who has an extensive background as a research chemist.
"The National Science Foundation agreed that to carry out high quality research at a two-year college was something they were very interested in," noted Moomaw.
Moomaw worked in the private sector before returning to earn her PhD from the University of Florida and entering the teaching field.
The grant will provide funding over the next three years to study manganese centers of the enzyme oxalate oxidase. The grant funds will provide for supplies and several pieces of advanced instrumentation. Additionally, three to four GSC students will take part in research internships during each semester (including summer) of the next three years.
Students who work directly on the project will be positively impacted, and by threading themes from this project throughout the College's Biology and Chemistry curriculum, a wide variety of science students at GSC will have their education enhanced by this work.
GSC students will have an opportunity to perform standard molecular biological, biochemical, spectroscopic, and database utilization techniques at the College. They will also have the opportunity to travel and work with collaborators at the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, and the National High Magnetic Field Lab (NHMFL) in Tallahassee.
"This grant is a wonderful recognition of the work that students have done with me in recent years," said Moomaw. "This reflects the importance that the NSF places on providing undergraduate students with meaningful research opportunities. I am excited at the prospect of moving research to a new level at GSC."
Fewer than 20% of the proposals submitted to the NSF are funded. The panel of experts who reviewed the proposal thought funding Moomaw's proposal would enhance the research infrastructure at GSC and provide high quality research opportunities at the interface of chemistry and biology to students at the undergraduate level.
This funding initiates a long-term project to elucidate how protein environment modulates the chemistry of oxalate degradation in recombinant oxalate oxidase from Ceriporiopsis subvermispora. Oxalate oxidase is an enzyme that catalyzes the carbon-carbon bond cleavage of oxalate to yield carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide.
Oxalate oxidase has actual and potential commercial significance with applications in medicine, agriculture, and industry. Transgenic plants have been engineered to express oxalate oxidase as a means of protection against pathogens and to reduce the amount of oxalate present. Other applications include the bioremediation of oxalate waste, the production of hydrogen peroxide, pulping in the paper industry, and clinical assays of oxalate in blood and urine. These uses and the desire to explain the novel chemistry that these enzymes catalyze make them worthy subjects of study.
The specific objectives of this proposal are three fold: 1) to characterize the manganese-dependence of oxalate oxidase from C. subvermispora, 2) to identify the active site of the enzyme, and 3) to advance understanding of the relationship between protein structures and function while promoting teaching, learning, and training at Gainesville State College.
The broader impacts of this course of study include transforming GSC from an institution that provides excellent coursework in the sciences into an institution that also provides students the opportunity to incorporate newly learned concepts into meaningful and important laboratory research.
GSC is in good company, as other recent NSF grant recipients include Stanford, Cal State, Arizona State and the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa.
"The National Science Foundation agreed that to carry out high quality research at a two-year college was something they were very interested in," noted Dr. Ellen Moomaw, GSC Assistant Professor of Chemistry.
http://accesswdun.com/article/2009/9/223315