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> College of Engineering
Points of Excellence: Leading Research
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Center for Biofilm Engineering research team publishing and striving to help improve patient health. A publication and accompanying cover image representing work by the Medical Biofilm Laboratory team at MSU’s Center for Biofilm Engineering have recently appeared in Wound Repair and Regeneration, a scientific journal. The publication describes how the team looked for biofilms in both chronic and acute wounds. They found a statistically significant difference between the two wound types and evidence that biofilms may be abundant in chronic wounds.
In another publication that appeared in BMC Microbiology, team members stated that bacterial populations in chronic wounds cooperate to promote their own survival and the infections’ chronic nature. The team found that different wound types contained different bacterial populations and that wounds support bacterial populations not typically recognized as wound pathogens.
Because they found that traditional culture-based diagnostic methods failed to correctly identify the primary bacterial population in all but one wound type, they concluded that clinicians need better diagnostic methods. Only with this and a better understanding of how bacterial communities interact does the team expect clinicians to have greater success in treating wounds and improving patients’ prognoses. Read the full abstracts and see the cover image at the CBE home page. http://www.cbe.montana.edu |
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| Utah DOT and WTI recognized for innovation. The Utah Department of Transportation received a “Best of ITS” award from the Intelligent Transportation Society of America (ITS America) for the Evaluation of its Weather Operations/RWIS (WO) Program, done in partnership with the Western Transportation Institute (WTI). The Utah program won top honors for the “Best Return on Investment.” WTI’s evaluation for UDOT identified and quantified benefits of its WO Program. UDOT’s WO Program saves an estimated $2.2 million per year for snow and ice control and has a benefit-cost ratio greater than 10:1. More... (See pg. 5 of the newsletter in the PDF that will open in a new window.) |
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NASA taps ECE faculty to gather pieces of global climate change puzzle. MSU researchers have received $1.14 million from NASA to study aerosols and water vapor in the atmosphere. Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty members Kevin Repasky and Joseph Shaw are collaborating on the remote-sensing project with two Physics faculty members and two graduate students. The team will build a two-color light-detection and ranging system (LIDAR) to determine the concentration of aerosols and a device to measure water vapor. Water vapor is the chief greenhouse gas, but unlike carbon dioxide, its concentration varies widely over the globe from day to day. The team will also gather atmospheric data with two additional sensors that they will buy, install and maintain with funds from the NASA grant. The team’s data will contribute to climate modeling. Understanding the complex interaction of aerosols, which might actually cause a cooling effect, and greenhouse gases that cause warming is important. At this stage, scientists need more data and better models to answer questions about whether reducing particulates from cars and smokestacks could accelerate global warming. More... |
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South Dakota DOT and MSU faculty work to protect fish and aquatic habitats . People are increasingly aware of how roads affect wildlife, but the effects of culverts on fish are largely unknown. The South Dakota Department of Transportation (SD DOT) is working with the Western Transportation Institute (WTI) and faculty in MSU’s civil engineering and ecology departments to study how culverts affect Topeka shiners. An endangered species of fish, they live in small streams with high water quality in several prairie states. The team is investigating how culverts act as barriers to distribution and genetic diversity of Topeka shiners. They are also finding ways to retrofit existing culverts and improve new culvert designs to improve passage of fish. The project results will be useful to other DOTs who must build and maintain safe, cost-effective roads without destroying aquatic habitats and connectivity. More... (See pg. 6 of the newsletter in the PDF that will open in a new window.) |
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Montana State University is now in the top tier of research universities in the United States. A new classification system by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching recognizes MSU as one of 94 research universities with "very high research activity." Other such institutions are Yale University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington and Oregon State University. MSU's expenditures from sponsored research programs reached almost $100 million in Fiscal Year 2005 and are expected to keep going. More... |
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