University's 25 Percent Annual Grant Growth in '04 Was Fifth-Largest Among Research Campuses
Denver & the West
CSU's Research Strides
By Dave Curtin
Denver Post Staff Writer
Colorado State University - with specialities in fields such as bioterrorism and nanotechnology - has become one of the fastest-growing research universities in the country.
CSU research grants hit a record $267.4 million in fiscal 2006, up 10 percent from the previous year, according to the university.
In 2004 - the last year for which comparable numbers are available - CSU's 25 percent annual growth in grants was the fifth-largest among research universities, based on a Chronicle of Higher Education survey and National Science Foundation data.
Among the biggest grants are $62 million for a bioterrorism defense center and laboratory, a $19 million cloud-modeling group and $29 million nanotechnology center.
"Biodefense and nanotechnology are very fashionable right now because money is available for them," said Sheldon Krimsky, a science- policy expert at Tufts University.
"A lot of universities would like to get in that game," Krimsky said.
The momentum also puts CSU in position to compete for more grants, CSU officials say.
"These are the areas, for whatever reason historically, the university has become a world leader," Provost Tony Frank said. "It's only when you have that world-class level of faculty that you compete for these centers."
The competition for federal research centers is fierce, said Peter McPherson, president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges in Washington, D.C.
CSU, for example, competed with 164 universities for one of six National Science Foundation Science and Technology Centers and won with a proposal on cloud modeling.
The award, announced last month, took more than five years from proposal to funding, said David Randall, director of the center.
"The research is aimed at improving our ability to simulate what clouds do in the global atmosphere. That's important for climate and weather prediction," Randall said.
CSU plans to begin construction next year on a building to house 50 faculty, researchers, students and support staff.
Overall, CSU ranked 49th in the nation among public universities for research-and-development spending, with $214.8 million in fiscal year 2004, according to the National Science Foundation.
Many of the universities ahead of CSU on the list have health sciences centers - which CSU does not - that attract federal and private medical and pharmaceutical research funds.
The University of Colorado ranks 13th among public universities, with $482.9 million in research spending. That figure includes $239 million in spending by its Health Sciences Center.
One of CSU's new centers is the $40 million center for biodefense and infectious diseases, awarded last year by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"The basic goals are the development of new vaccinations and drugs for a group of pathogens that are emerging diseases or have the potential to be bioweapons," said Barry Beaty, director of the center and a microbiology professor.
One of its main emphases is animal diseases transmissible to humans. A number of them are common in the Rocky Mountain West - plague, hantavirus and West Nile, Beaty said.
A $22 million federal biodefense lab also funded by the national infectious diseases institute broke ground in November. The lab will house 15 research teams looking at diseases such as yellow fever, dengue and tularemia.
All the grants come with a requirement to advance the research to the marketplace.
For example, a new $29 million nanotechnology center, operated jointly with CU and University of California, Berkeley, developing smaller computer microchips has large computer chip manufacturers Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. as industrial partners.