MnDRIVE, Advancing Industry, Conserving Our Environment, Announced Seed Grant Funding for 2016-2017.
A new round of seed grant funding for 2016-12017 was announced by MnDRIVE Advancing Industry, Conserving Our Environment. Three post-doctorate and two graduate fellowships were awarded.
Post-Doctorate
Dr. Abdennour Abbas was awarded a fellowship for his proposed development of a novel water cleaning system composed of a composite sponge expected to remove all microorganisms and 99.93% of mercury from water within a few minutes.
Dr. Kechun Zhang was awarded for his proposal to use Synthetic Biology to develop a new approach to convert agricultural waste protein into value-added fertilizer, fuels, and chemicals.
Dr. Leonard Ferrington proposes to identify symbiotic insect relationships that are at risk in Minnesota and could likely alter the availability of insects in the diet of Minnesota sport fish species.
Graduate
Dr. Satoshi Ishii and Dr. Cara Santelli propose to develop bioreactors to remove manganese and sulfate from groundwater and surface water in Minnesota, by using a consortium of algae and manganese oxidizing microorganisms.
Dr. Chan Lan Chun and Dr. Eric Singsaas are proposing the development of a system capable of promoting and sustaining microbial metabolisms to remediate water contaminated with nitrate through subsurface agricultural drainage by integrating the saturated buffer system with an electromagnetic field.