Published: October 03, 2008 10:04 am         

An $800,000 grant

• National Science Foundation gives OSU money to study microorganisms at a sulfur spring near Anadarko

Dr. Mostafa Elshahed is still a relative newcomer to Oklahoma State University.

But the kind of work he has done since arriving in Stillwater in January 2007 is evident by the grant the National Science Foundation gave OSU based on his research.

The school is receiving $800,000 and the University of Oklahoma will get another $500,000 over the next five years as the universities partner to study microorganisms at a sulfur spring near Anadarko.

Elshahed and his assistants will identify previously unknown microorganisms at the site and grow them as pure cultures in the laboratory.

OU, meanwhile, will be studying how the microorganisms behave in the spring.

Elshahed, an Egyptian, earned his doctorate and did post-doctoral research at OU with Dr. Lee Krumholz, who will be the lead researcher for OU on this project. They had previously studied the spring and decided to do more extensive research.

Elshahed said the spring is promising because they already found new microorganisms there. The spring is unique in that it has hydrocarbons, sulfur, little sunlight and low oxygen.

“What they expect is not a drug, not a cure for a disease, but knowledge,” he said. “This knowledge can be used as a base for more applied research. More specialized scientists can use this as a means for new discoveries.”

“Finding something new is always exciting. There could be lots of useful things,” said Dr. Noha Youssef, another Egyptian who received her doctorate at OU and is now a post-doctoral research assistant at OSU.

Another former Sooner on the project is Jim Davis, a doctoral student who did undergraduate work in Norman. He learned from Elshahed and Youssef there and said he was excited to be in Stillwater working with them.

“I will get the chance to prove myself with this grant and the chance to move on to bigger and better things,” Davis said. “This will make this lab nationally known and eventually worldwide known.”

Also helping is master’s student Audra Liggenstoffer.

Elshahed said the grant is part of an elite program, which is a high-risk, high-reward situation.

“This is the type of grant they expect you to publish in big journals,” he said. “If you don’t deliver, you never get it again.”

Part of the grant will pay for high school students to get involved. A summer laboratory will be conducted and their findings will be presented at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium at OSU.

     

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