Fellowships awarded to 5 researchers

Five researchers from Arkansas universities — including one who helped develop a more efficient charger for Toyota’s electric vehicles and one who has created a way to determine when a patient is nearing toxic levels of acetaminophen — were named as Arkansas Research Alliance Fellows on Wednesday at the state Capitol.

The five Arkansas Research Alliance fellows are Alexandru Biris, director and chief scientist for the Center for Integrative Nanotechnology Sciences at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Dr. Laura James, director of the Translational Research Institute and a professor of pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; Argelia Lorence, co-leader of the Plant Imaging Consortium at Arkansas State University; Alan Mantooth, executive director of the National Center for Re-

liable Electric Power Transmission at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville; and Trace Peterson, an assistant professor at the Regulatory Science Center of Excellence at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

Each fellow was nominated by his university’s chancellor and will receive a $75,000 grant that is paid over three years.

Since 2010, the Arkansas Research Alliance has recruited five research scholars from outside Arkansas to work at universities in the state.

With the five fellows introduced Wednesday, the research alliance now has 10 “branded” researchers in the state, said Jerry Adams, chief executive officer of the organization.

“Next year, we may have 15, 16 or 17,” Adams said. “We’re trying to create a group of people who can help us in our research vision. These are going to be brought together hopefully in an annual meeting where we will do research analysis … at the state level, not at the institution level.”

Mantooth and his team designed a charger for electric Toyota vehicles. The charger, made of aluminum, is lighter than other devices and can withstand high levels of heat, he said.

“We do electronics for a lot of different applications,” Mantooth said.

One electronic design has flown on the International Space Station, where it withstood extreme temperatures and radiation.

James has spent years studying pediatric drugs, said UAMS’ Chancellor Dan Rahn. In the past 10 years, James has focused on acetaminophen toxicity, a cause of liver damage in children and adults, and has developed a way to measure the risk of injury, Rahn said. In 2006, James and others founded Acetaminophen Toxicity Diagnostics, a company in UAMS’ BioVentures business incubator.

Lorence’s research has potential applications for the development of crop plants with enhanced nutritional content. She has secured more than $11 million in grants since joining ASU in 2005.

Biris and his team explore nanostructures that can be used to alter the properties of substances at atomic levels, said UALR Chancellor Joel Anderson. One area of study with animals has led to successful bone regeneration in significant fractures, Anderson said.

Peterson promotes research partnerships among UAPB, other academic institutions and corporate partners. He studies human cancers and kidney diseases by focusing research on zebrafish. Peterson also researches patentable vaccines for previously unnpreventable diseases in food fish, which could enhance food security worldwide.

The Arkansas Research Alliance was patterned after the Georgia Research Alliance, which has attracted more than 60 scholars and more than $3 billion in federal research funding since it was founded more than 20 years ago. The Georgia group has helped create more than 150 companies that support more than 5,500 jobs.