UNC ROI Awards Three Grants for Research on Data Science, Green Fuels, Hybrid Materials Technology | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    CHAPEL HILL     UNC President Margaret Spellings announced the University of North Carolina's Research Opportunities Initiative (UNC ROI) will provide three new grants worth a total of $6.2 million to teams from six universities in the UNC system.

    The grants are funded by the North Carolina General Assembly to promote innovative and potentially game-changing research projects within the UNC system. Priority research areas for the UNC ROI program are pharmacoengineering, advanced manufacturing, energy, data science, marine sciences as well as the military and other security-related issues.

    "The research produced by our institutions continues to positively impact the lives of all North Carolinians through advancements in areas such as healthcare and clean energy," said President Spellings. "We're grateful to state lawmakers for their strong support of UNC ROI's important work."

    This year's winners include:

• Data Science: Infohub for Rare Diseases. Lead investigator: Alexander Tropsha, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Partnering institutions: North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. This project will leverage recent developments in the state's strategic areas of data science and rare diseases to create a data hub that will improve the understanding of diseases and accelerate the development of novel therapies.
• Solar-Enabled Green Liquid Fuels: On-Demand Carbon-Neutral Liquid Fuel Production from Biogas. Lead investigator: Debasish Kuila, North Carolina Agricultural and State Technical University. Partnering institutions: NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill. Researchers aim to develop a sustainable technology that will convert a biorenewable energy source into carbon-neutral gasoline. The technology would provide significant economic benefit to the state as well as lower the environmental footprint of the farming enterprise.
• Center of Hybrid Materials Enabled Electronic Technology. Lead Investigator: Jinsong Huang, UNC-Chapel Hill. Partnering institutions: North Carolina Central University, NC State, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. This project will capture the unprecedented opportunity brought by the revolutionary discovery of a new class of hybrid perovskite materials - a type of low-cost, efficient solar cell. The project could potentially result in innovations in clean energy, imaging, and radiation sensing. The team's goal is to establish a center for these technologies that will accelerate the commercialization process of the technologies developed and have a major impact on the state's economy.

    About UNC ROI

    The University of North Carolina's Research Opportunities Initiative (ROI) began in 2014 to provide targeted funding for innovative and potentially game-changing research projects. Funded by a $3 million annual appropriation from the General Assembly, UNC ROI supports research projects in six areas that can support economic development across the state: advanced manufacturing; marine and coastal sciences; defense, military, and security; pharmacoengineering; energy; and data sciences. ROI accepts proposals from any of the 17 institutions of the UNC system, and to date, has funded 10 projects.

    About the University of North Carolina

    The oldest public university in the nation, the University of North Carolina enrolls nearly 225,000 students and encompasses all 16 of North Carolina's public institutions that grant baccalaureate degrees, as well as the NC School of Science and Mathematics, the nation's first public residential high school for academically gifted students. UNC campuses support a broad array of distinguished liberal-arts programs, two medical schools and one teaching hospital, two law schools, a veterinary school, a school of pharmacy, 11 nursing programs, 15 schools of education, five schools of engineering and a renowned arts conservatory. The UNC Center for Public Television, with its 12-station statewide broadcast network, is also under the University umbrella.

• Contact: Joshua N Ellis
•     jnellis@northcarolina.edu