August 19, 2002

NSF funds three major research instrumentation grants

By Tim Stephens

The National Science Foundation (NSF) allows research institutions to submit just three grant proposals each year for "Major Research Instrumentation." This year, for the first time, all three proposals submitted by UCSC have been funded.

An NSF instrumentation grant will enable a group of researchers led by Glenn Millhauser, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, to buy a state-of-the-art electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer 10 times more sensitive than the one shown here in Millhauser's laboratory. Photo: Tim Stephens

"These are highly competitive awards, so it is a big deal for all three to get funding and it says a lot about the quality of the research," said Burney Le Boeuf, associate vice chancellor for research.

The recipients of the grants, which total about $1.1 million, are:

• Holger Schmidt, assistant professor of electrical engineering, and Ali Shakouri, associate professor of electrical engineering, for the development of an optical microscopy system for ultrafast nanoscale imaging.

• Glenn Millhauser, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, Pradip Mascharak, professor of chemistry and biochemistry, Theodore Holman, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and Donald Smith, associate professor of environmental toxicology, for purchase of an electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer to study how metals influence living systems.

• Lisa Sloan, associate professor of Earth sciences, for acquisition of a computational laboratory for regional, interdisciplinary investigations of climatic and environmental change.

NSF rules stipulate that one of the three proposals submitted must be for the development of a new kind of instrument. Schmidt and Shakouri plan to develop a new instrument that combines the ability to measure very small features (on the level of nanometers) with very high time resolution (at the picosecond timescale). A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, and a picosecond is one trillionth of second.

"Only a handful of laboratories have achieved simultaneous high temporal resolution and high spatial resolution," Shakouri said.

Ultrafast nanoscale imaging has many potential applications in nanotechnology and other areas of research. Shakouri wants to use the instrument to study the internal structure of computer chips. Schmidt is interested in using the new instrument to study the behavior of nanomagnets for high-density magnetic data storage.

"This is the ultimate reduction in hard-disk storage: If you make the magnetic domains where you write information very small, in the nanometer range, you need to be able to study the dynamics of individual domains as they turn on and off, and this instrument would allow us to do that," Shakouri said.

Millhauser's group is acquiring a state-of-the-art instrument called an electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectrometer. This instrument will support an interdisciplinary group of researchers in chemistry and environmental toxicology whose work focuses on the roles of metals in biology and the environment.

Millhauser, for example, is studying the role of copper ions in the prion diseases, which include mad cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in humans. Mascharak and Holman study enzymes and other important proteins that bind iron, while Smith is investigating the toxicity of metals such as lead and manganese.

"EPR spectroscopy tells us about the molecular environment of a metal ion," Millhauser said. "Our goal is to develop a deeper understanding of how metals, especially those found in the environment, influence living systems. There are lots of metal toxins in the environment, and this instrument is so sensitive it really gives us a leg up on figuring out how these metals are participating in biological damage."

The new instrument will be 10 times more sensitive than the one currently used by researchers in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In addition, the number of researchers using the current instrument has grown so large that they often face delays in getting access to it, Millhauser said. The new instrument will not only be shared among research laboratories, it will also be available for undergraduate research projects and lab classes, he said.

The third grant was awarded to Lisa Sloan, whose research on how global climate change will affect California made headlines earlier this summer (see Currents story.) The new funding will enable Sloan to buy more powerful computers for running her laboratory's regional climate model.

"It will allow us to run a lot more scenarios for California's future climate, and we will also be able to set up a database as a resource for our collaborators who want to do impact studies based on our results," Sloan said.

The results from Sloan's regional climate modeling will be used by researchers in a wide range of disciplines to investigate the possible effects of future climate change. These investigations include the effects of climate change on marine and terrestrial ecosystems, water quality, water availability and management, geologic hazards, and other systems.

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