College of Ag Awarded $1.8M in Capacity Building Grants

DSU’s College of Agriculture and Related Sciences has been awarded more than $1.8 million from the USDA’s 1890 Institution Teaching, Research and Extension Capacity Building Grants Program.

Eleven DSU faculty members – nine from the College of Agriculture and Related Sciences and two from the College of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Technology – will use the funding for nine different projects ranging from scientific research to curriculum enhancement.

The projects, the grant amount, and the DSU faculty involved:

• Biofuels production research – Dr. Bertrand Hankoua, a food and nutritional sciences researcher from the College of Ag, is the principal investigator of a $499,964 grant for a project that will employ metabolic engineering techniques that are expected to result in the use of high biomass-yielding energy grasses for the efficient and cost-effective production of biofuels. On this project, Dr. Hankoua will collaborate with several co-PIs who are bio-energy experts biofuel and biotechnology research centers across the country.
• Enzyme immobilization in support of food security – Dr. Cheng-Yu Lai, associate professor and associate chair of the Dept. of Chemistry, is the principal investigator of a three-year $299,996 grant for a project that will use the porous silica nanoparticle to anchor enzymes that are able to break biomass in sugar. The technique is projected to lower the cost of enzymes in the food industry. Dr. Lai is assisted by DSU co-PIs Dr. Daniela Radu, assistant professor of chemistry, and Dr. Gulnihal Ozbay, College of Ag. research professor.
• Expanding economic opportunities of under-served farmers – Dr. Lekha Paudel, a DSU Cooperative Extension farm management specialist, is the principal investigator of a three-year $245,281 grant to introduce under-served farmers to alternative specialty crops, ways to reduce post-harvest spoilage and help them develop marketing skills.

  Dr. Venu Kalavacharla will use $128,850 for research involving sweet potatoes and viruses that attack it.

• Build Capacity and Strengthen DSU’s Food and Nutritional Science Program – Dr. Samuel Besong, chair of the DSU Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, is the project director of a $299,875 grant to establish collaborative approach to recruit and train a diverse workforce for career opportunities in food and nutritional sciences. DSU co-project directors include Dr. Stephen Lumor, associate professor of human ecology; Dr. Carol Giesecke, director of the Didactic Program in Dietetics; and Donna Brown, Cooperative Extension family life agent. There is also collaboration with two co-project directors from Camden County College of N.J. and Delaware Technical and Community College.
• Oyster-associated Vibrio infection detection – Dr. Gulnihal Ozbay, College of Ag. research professor, is the co-PI  of $175,895 grant in which she will work researchers from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore seeks to develop a less expensive and time-consuming colony overlay procedure for identification of the marine malady.
• Genetic research relating to sweet potatoes – Dr Venu Kalavacharla, professor of molecular genetics in the DSU Department of Ag, is a co-PI in a project in which DSU will receive $129,850 to gain a better understanding of the differences between virus-free and virus infected sweet potatoes.
• Agriculture Study/Research Abroad in Latin America – Dr. Marikis Alvarez, associate dean of research for the College of Ag, is the principal investigator of a $149,500 grant that is DSU’s portion in collaboration with Tuskegee University and Alabama A&M University to bring about a study-abroad program in Costa Rica that will focus on agriculture education and research. Dr. Sathya Elavarthi, assistant professor of agriculture, is also a co-PI on the project.
• Tension Irrigation Technology Research – Dr. Mingxin Guo, professor of agriculture, is the principal investigator of a $65,988 professional development grant will fund a five-month sabbatical for research at the National Engineering Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture in Beijing, China.
• Food Safety of Fresh Produce Program – Dr. Samuel Besong, chair of the DSU Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, is a co-PI of a project designed to build an integrated program on Food Safety of Produce. DSU is one of several 1890 Land Grant institutions that have been awarded toward this project; the current grant amount to go to each institution is undetermined.

The total amount of grants for the above DSU projects is $1,866,349.

The 1890 Capacity Building Grant (CBG) Program is intended to strengthen teaching, research and extension programs in the food and agricultural sciences by building the institutional capacities of the 1890 Land-Grant Institutions such as DSU.