With $10.65 million of support from the U.S. Department of Energy, Michigan State University is home to one of the nation's newest Energy Frontier Research Centers.
Led by Cheryl Kerfeld, a Hannah Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory, the center is exploring how nature compartmentalizes some of its most important biochemical reactions.
This understanding will allow the researchers to mimic nature's methods to develop new and more efficient ways to produce important molecules and chemicals to benefit society, including clean, sustainable fuels.
"We'll be taking not only the principles — like modularity and hierarchical assembly — but also some of the building materials that nature uses to compartmentalize reactions that would otherwise be toxic or inefficient," said Kerfeld, whose lab operates at both MSU and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "If we're successful, even partially, we can help address global challenges related to energy and the environment."
The new center, called the Center for Catalysis in Biomimetic Confinement or CCBC, is one of 43 announced recently by the DOE, representing a nationwide investment of $400 million.
"Spearheaded by world-leading scientists, DOE's Energy Frontier Research Centers are innovation powerhouses that have unlocked scientific breakthroughs," said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in a news release.
The CCBC assembles a group of experts from MSU, Berkeley Lab and Argonne National Laboratory. With members in academia and national labs, the team will leverage the unique benefits of both settings.
"It's so much fun to work on a project like this. You get the best of both worlds," said Eric Hegg, a co-investigator with the CCBC. Hegg is a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and an associate dean of the College of Natural Science.
The national labs, for example, have tools and technologies that aren't widely available at universities. For its part, MSU — as one of the nation's leading research universities — is home to some of the world's brightest undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral scholars.
"The students and postdocs are incredibly excited, creative and motivated," Hegg said. "Being part of a large center will also give them ability to get a breadth of knowledge, expand their capabilities and make connections."
Both research settings boast leading scientists in a variety of disciplines, bringing an array of skill sets to the CCBC, such as enzymology, synthetic chemistry, computational modeling and structural biology.
"This team is a strong group of investigators with a track record of working productively together," Kerfeld said. "The whole is much more than the sum of its parts.
Categories: Michigan, Education