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September 15, 2024 | Tom Ballard

UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute awards $450,000 to six researchers

Three projects are focused on circular bioeconomy systems, and three others address radiopharmaceutical therapies.

The University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute (UT-ORII) recently awarded six grants – five to UT, Knoxville faculty members and a sixth to a researcher from the UT Health Science Center who are leading research to advance UT-ORII’s circular bioeconomy systems and radiopharmaceutical therapies convergent research initiatives (CRIs). UT-ORII’s CRIs are emerging areas of strength for both UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Each of the selected research efforts will receive about $75,000.

Circular Bioeconomy:

  • Amanda May for a project titled “Combined Impacts of Microplastics and Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) on Metabolomic Functions of Bioenergy Crop Rhizosphere Bacteria”;
  • Nour Abdoulmoumine for a project titled “CO2 Valorization to Bio-Derived Chemicals and Polymer Precursors”; and
  • Ivan Popov for his project titled “Development of Next-Generation Lignin-Derived BioVitrimers with Dynamic Covalent Networks for Circular Recycling Systems.”

Radiopharmaceutical Therapies:

  • Sue Chin Lee (UTHSC) for her project titled “Establishing Patient-Derived Ovarian Cancer Cell Models to Evaluate the Therapeutic Efficacy of Alpha-Particle Therapy”;
  • Joshua Baccile for a project titled “Development of Novel 89Zr Chelators Towards Enhanced PET Imaging Applications”; and
  • Michael Danquah for a project titled “Radiolabeled Aptamers for Targeted CD19 Theranostics in Early-Stage B Cell Malignancies.”


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