Claflin University News March 28, 2011 Claflin University's Dr. Nicholas Panasik Receives Prestigious National Science Foundation Grant Dr. Nicholas Panasik, assistant professor of biology at Claflin University, has been awarded the much sought after Faculty Early Career Development Program grant from the National Science Foundation, an award which places him among the top junior faculty in the nation. "It's incredibly prestigious," said Panasik. "This is one of the highest grant awards an individual can receive from the federal government." Panasik was recently awarded a five-year grant by the NSF that could potentially be worth $750,000 to support biofuel research. The NSF grant is awarded to junior faculty who "exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research." Panasik and his student researchers are on the frontlines of discovering how to make the production of biofuels less expensive and more efficient. The funding will provide more research equipment and supplies, undergraduate and graduate research on the project and bring a post-doctoral fellow to campus. The building block of biofuel is the cellulose found in sugar rich plant biomass. Currently, enzymes used to breakdown cellulose heat up dramatically. That is problematic because the cellulose needs to cooled down in order to function properly, which Panasik notes is one of the most expensive steps in its production. Using what Panasik calls "directed evolution"; enzymes can be redesigned to work under a variety of different conditions. By latching psychrophilic, or cold-loving, bacteria onto the enzyme in a test tube, Panasik believes he can engineer it to work at higher temperatures and therefore break down the cellulose without the need for expensive cooling techniques. "It's basically genetic manipulation," Panasik said. "In many cases we don't know how nature really works. We don't know what changes we need to make ahead of time to get a new function or a new behavior out of an enzyme. The beauty of this process is that we don't need to. Nature does the work for us." The process essentially involves copying cold-loving genes that can break down cellulose millions of times which create small, random mutations. Those genes are then introduced to higher temperatures organisms that don't have the ability to break down cellulose. By feeding the new organisms cellulose for food at higher temperatures than normal, most of the new bacteria will die. But a handful of them will survive and can be harvested for further study. "By repeating this process over and over, eventually a new enzyme with a much higher temperature resistance can be found," he said. Last spring, Panasik was awarded the James E. Hunter Excellence in Teaching Award, the University's highest honor for a professor. Panasik's method is for students to learn the basics for research in the classroom and apply it in the laboratory. The NSF grant was awarded, in part, because of Panasik's ability to incorporate research into his teaching. "I don't think anything is more important to Claflin's mission than teaching students. It is incredibly rewarding to see students who are struggling with intellectually challenging issues finally get it. You see that light in their eyes spark. Being a part of that process is one of the reasons why I love my job," Panasik said. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Program Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 404.592.4820 Skype:sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree Street NW Suite 200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (Lyrasis) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children.