Development of a Scalable Pipeline for Asymbiotic Nitrogen-Fixing Biologicals (ANFix-BIO) to Improve Crop Nutrient Management

Harsh Bais, Plant and Soil Sciences

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Modern agriculture relies heavily on synthetic nitrogen (N) fertilizers, contributing to rising production costs and significant environmental impacts. This project will leverage buried historic soils (BHS) as a novel and underexplored source of microbial diversity to identify microbes adapted to chronically low-nitrogen conditions that could support asymbiotic nitrogen fixation in non-leguminous crops. The team will isolate and characterize candidate microbes and evaluate their potential as single-strain inoculants and synthetic consortia under greenhouse and field-relevant conditions. The anticipated outcome is ANFix-BIO, a biologically derived platform for asymbiotic nitrogen fixation that could reduce nitrogen fertilizer inputs, improve nutrient use efficiency, and advance the environmental and economic sustainability of agriculture.

Risks, Impacts, & Strategies for Coastal Communities: Accelerating Action through Translation (RISCC-ACT)

Jon Cox, Art and Design

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The interdisciplinary team will develop RISCC-ACT, a modular toolkit that translates coastal research into adoption-ready public engagement and resilience education programs. The toolkit will integrate scientific content, art and narrative immersion, film outreach, audience engagement, training and mentorship, and outcome assessment, allowing partners to implement individual components or the full system based on their local capacity. The team will pilot the model at host venues and evaluate its impact on engagement outcomes. By integrating research, delivery, and evaluation into a translational platform, RISCC-ACT has the potential to expand access to coastal resilience education and provide institutions with adaptable tools for engaging their communities.

Pulse-Modulated Joule Heating for Selective Biomass Upgrading

Weiqing Zheng, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Dionisios G. Vlachos, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

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Biomass conversion to fuels and chemicals offers a promising pathway to reduce the carbon footprint of the chemical industry, yet conventional thermal processes often face challenges of poor selectivity, catalyst deactivation, and high energy consumption. This project will develop an electrified approach that uses pulse-modulated Joule heating to dynamically control catalytic active sites during biomass conversion. The team will integrate conductive catalyst supports into a high-pressure reactor and use rapid thermal pulses to steer reaction pathways and control product selectivity without changing the catalyst itself. Proof-of-concept studies will demonstrate how dynamic heating can enhance desired product formation while mitigating catalyst deactivation.This approach has the potential to enable more efficient, selective, and energy-efficient biomass conversion and advance the electrification of sustainable chemical.

Multimodal System Integrating Nanocomposite Wearable & EMG Sensors for Tracking Human Movements and Physical Rehabilitation
Sagar Doshi, Center for Composite Materials Ìý

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This 91Ô­´´ team isÌýdeveloping a technology that will enable real-time and continuous monitoring of human movements and gait outside of a clinic/laboratory setting to help physical therapy (PT) clinicians and patients make the post knee-replacement rehabilitation process more efficient, convenientÌýand affordable. Based on 30+ voice-of-customer interviews with PT clinicians, there is no affordable, convenient way for them to track their patient's progressÌý— to determine if the patients are compliant with the prescribed exercises —Ìýwhich makesÌýrecovery inefficient and could lead to additional injuries or loss of functionality.ÌýThis team’sÌýproposed solution is the development of a multimodal sensing platformÌýconsistingÌýof (i) commercially available (electromyography) EMG sensors fromÌýmTrigger LLC,ÌýwhichÌýmeasureÌýthe electrical activity produced by target muscle groups during physical rehabilitation, and (ii) our patented textile-based wearable sensors that are comfortable, flexibleÌýand easy to use to measureÌýjoint mobility and pressure.

Music for Listeners with Autism: An Online Platform for Collecting Music Interaction Data from Children with Autism

Matthew Mauriello, Dept. of Computer and Information Sciences, and Daniel Stevens, School of Music

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In 2020, theÌýCenters for Disease Control (CDC)Ìýreported that 1 in 36ÌýU.S. children were diagnosed withÌýautism spectrum disordersÌý(ASD), a significant rise over prior years. While many children with ASD are musically inclined, those who struggle to engage in early, formative participatory music listening do not fully benefit from the cognitive, motor, emotionalÌýand social growth that attends this activity. This project aims to develop a web-based music listening, interactionÌýand data collection platform that features modular arrangements of children’s songs designed for children with ASD. These variable-speed arrangements allow listeners to add, subtractÌýand recombine musical layers according to their preferences, needs, emotional statesÌýand expressive desires. By recording these interactions at scale,Ìýthis 91Ô­´´ team seeksto create datasets to generate insights about listener preferences and inform future compositions and music therapies.

Novel Assay Platform for Detection of Ubiquitinated Tau as an Alzheimer’s Disease Biomarker

Chris Martens, Dept. ofÌýKinesiology and Applied Physiology, and Zhihao Zhuang, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry

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Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative condition in the United States, imposing a significant economic burden on society. Biomarkers forÌýAD and related dementiasÌýnot only aid in early diagnosis and treatment but also enhance drug discovery by enabling patient stratification and improving clinical trial success rates. On the therapeutic front, the repertoire of disease-modifying treatments for AD remains exceptionally limited. Given the important roles of Tau ubiquitination in the AD pathophysiology and disease progression, it is imperative to explore ubiquitinated TauÌý(Ub-Tau)Ìýas a potential biomarker for AD. Currently, there are no blood-basedÌýUb-TauÌýbiomarker assays reported in the literature and adopted in the clinics. The PI’s lab has developed a patented method for generating well-defined and homogenousÌýUb-Tau.ÌýThis project will establish the validity ofÌýthis 91Ô­´´Ìýassay for future research, diagnosticÌýand clinical applications.

Integrating Chemo- and Bio-Catalysis for Non-Standard Amino Acid Design & Isolation

STRP Lead: Dr. Aditya Kunjapur, Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, and Dr. John Koh, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry

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This Seed Translational Research Project (STRP) will develop an integrated chemical and biological platform to produce and isolate non-standard amino acids (nsAAs)—key molecular building blocks for advanced therapeutics, enzymes, and materials. Current nsAA production methods are costly, inefficient, and limited in scope. The team will combine engineered microorganisms or bacterial cell lysates with chemical purification techniques to create a modular, scalable workflow that generates diverse nsAAs from inexpensive starting materials at high yield and purity. By reducing production costs and expanding structural diversity, this approach will make nsAAs more accessible for pharmaceutical and biomanufacturing applications, accelerating the development of next-generation drugs, sustainable materials, and protein-based technologies.

Removal of Problematic Finishes from Textile Waste

STRP Lead: Dr. Dionisios Vlachos, Dept of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

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This Seed Translational Research Project (STRP) will develop technology capable of recycling the 90 million tons of mixed, unsorted textile waste disposed of in today’s landfills. Textile waste contributes the most to microplastic and nanoplastic pollution, significantly impacting human health and ecosystems, including wildlife, soil quality, and aquatic environments, while recycling textiles is challenging due to their complex composition and the additives, such as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), used on textiles. The team’s solution is to build on their existing technology to enable selective and rapid conversion and removal of the PFAS coating on textiles while preserving the integrity of the textile and to scale-up the technology to treat various textiles continuously.