Doane College won a major competitive research grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support the work of Dr. Andrea Holmes, assistant professor of chemistry. The grant provides $105,000 per year, up to $525,000 over five years, based on acceptable progress and the availability of funds.
Working with several undergraduate students, Dr. Holmes will begin a new phase of her research program to develop chemical sensors that change color in the presence of abused narcotics within a liquid or other substance. After having success in detecting the presence of flunitrazepam (sometimes called the "date-rape drug"), Dr. Holmes and her students will use the grant to develop other macromolecular color sensors to detect drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine.
Dr. Holmes' grant award comes through the NSF Division of Chemistry as well as the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, which is NSF's most prestigious award in support of the early career-development activities of teacher-scholars who integrate research and education at their institutions. The proposed projects are reviewed according to the same scientific standards as other research projects funded through the National Science Foundation.
Several Doane students will be directly involved in the research each year, and other students will benefit from the related laboratory and classroom work in their chemistry courses at Doane. Besides allowing Doane students to conduct important research as undergraduates, the project will send student-researchers back to their own high schools for classroom demonstrations and mentoring.
Eventually, the research project could contribute to future drug-detection tools for forensic scientists. A scientific abstract of Dr. Holmes' project, titled "CAREER: Design of Colorimetric and Chiroptical Sensors for Abused Narcotics," is available at the NSF Web site and also at the Doane College Web site.
Seven Doane students already conducting research with Dr. Holmes will present their findings at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans next April. They are Mike Guericke, Casey Gustafson, Christa Flitcroft, Katie Wilcox, Marcus Anderson and Shari Pacquette. First-year students becoming involved in the research are Jordan Groathouse and Jacob Francis.
In 2006 her and her students' work earned international media attention and a spot among 11 teams of finalists in the National Collegiate Inventors Competition in Washington, D.C.
Watch for a news story on Dr. Holmes and her students on the local Channel 8 News at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, January 25th.