Projects aim to improve health, energy, building and environmental sectors
06/16/2017
BATON ROUGE – Technology that will improve X-rays and medical imaging is one of the 13 innovations the LSU Board of Supervisors recently selected to support through its innovation and technology transfer grant. LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy Assistant Professor Joyoni Dey, along with a Ph.D. student and colleagues at the LSU Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices, are investigating the technology to create more detailed X-rays that will aid doctors analyzing lung and bone joint scans. This technology will also provide higher contrast images for mammograms.
“We are proud to support the research conducted by our world-class faculty at LSU as they work to advance technologies that will improve health and build economic prosperity,” said Scott Ballard, chairman of the LSU Board of Supervisors.
Another university researcher’s software platform that could impact the $1.7 trillion construction industry was funded. Jonathan Shi, the Art E. Favre Endowed Chair in the Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management in the College of Engineering, developed the Smart Construction Daily Reporter, or C-Reporter, to help building project managers create daily reports for ongoing construction projects. These reports can be used to analyze productivity and work methods to find the best ways to improve overall performance on the job. When the software is released, Shi hopes to work with the top five contractors in Baton Rouge, which will provide his team with $5 billion to validate the technology.
Thirteen projects were funded totaling $472,160 in the sixth round of the Leverage Innovation for Technology Transfer, or LIFT2, grants. Since 2014, 85 research projects have received funding. More than $3 million in support has been awarded by the LSU Board of Supervisors through this competitive grant to researchers across all of LSU’s campuses.
The LSU LIFT2 Fund provides support to help transfer LSU technologies and innovations to the market – support that can be difficult to come by through traditional means. Providing a bridge over the critical gap between basic research and commercialization, the LSU LIFT2 Fund awards grants to faculty on a competitive basis twice a year, in amounts up to $50,000, to validate the market potential of their inventions.
“LIFT2 grants are early and valuable start-up grants that can kick start inventions and new technologies that one day may become part of our everyday lives. This unique grant is one way LSU helps sustain a healthy economic ecosystem in Louisiana,” said Arthur Cooper, CEO of the LSU Research & Technology Foundation, which administers the LIFT2 grant application process.
Innovations include creative and artistic works as well as devices, drugs, software and other more traditional inventions; thus, personnel from all disciplines on all LSU campuses are strongly encouraged to consider an application to further develop an invention which has been previously disclosed to their campus technology transfer office.
The 2017 LIFT2 fund supports the following 13 new technologies:
· Open Hole Packers with Magneto-Rheological Fluids by Babak Akbari, LSU Department of Petroleum Engineering
· Smart Construction Daily Reporter, or C-Reporter, by Jonathan Shi, LSU Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management
· Valve Performance Clearinghouse, VPC™, Cloud Database by Wesley Williams, LSU Department of Petroleum Engineering
· Commercialization of a Video Activity Recognition System for Traffic Monitoring by Supratik Mukhopadhyay, LSU Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering
· Smart Expandable Cement Additive to Address Leakage Problems in Oil and Gas Wells by Guoqiang Li & Arash Dahi Taleghani, LSU Departments of Mechanical and Petroleum Engineering
· Catalytic Conversion of Methance to Higher Value Hydrocarbons and Hydrogen Using Superacids by James Spivey, LSU Department of Chemical Engineering
· High-Throughput/Low Maintenance Electrospraying for Thin Film Deposition by Theda Daniels-Race, LSU Department of Computer Science & Electrical Engineering
· A Novel Far-Field Contrast X-ray System by Joyoni Dey, LSU Department of Physics & Astronomy
· Low-cost and highly efficient magnetic MgO biochar composite for capturing removal of phosphate from surface and waste water by Jim Wang, LSU AgCenter’s School of Plant, Environmental and Soil Sciences
· Development of Commercial Probiotics for Fish Aquaculture by Wei Xu and C. Greg Lutz, LSU AgCenter’s Aquaculture Research Station
· ISGylation: a potential diagnostic/prognostic biomarker for neurodegenerative diseases by Shyamal Desai, LSU Health Sciences – New Orleans’ Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
· Developing new ceramide analogous “lead-compounds” against AIDS-related lymphomas in vivo by Zhiqiang Qin, LSU Health Sciences – New Orleans’ Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center
· Active and Passive Immunization Strategies against Life-threatening Invasive Fungal Infections by Hong Xin, LSU Health Sciences – New Orleans’ Department of Pediatrics
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LSU Media Relations
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asatake@lsu.edu
Elizabeth Carter
LSU Media Relations
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