Rice Research Review

A trio of Rice University professors and their labs are taking part in a five-year, $10 million Superfund Research Program grant awarded in May 2020 by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences to study how toxic chemicals emanating from Superfund sites impact preterm births. Naomi Halas, Kyriacos Zygourakis and Pedro Alvarez are bringing their labs’ expertise to the Baylor College of Medicine-based Multiproject Research Center that also includes collaborators from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Alvarez is the Rice lead, co-principal investigator and co-director of the center. Learn More

Testing for malaria could become as simple as putting on a bandage. That’s the idea behind a platform developed by Rice University engineers who introduced a microneedle patch for rapid diagnostic testing that does not require extracting blood. The device detailed in the November 2020 issue of the Nature journal Microsystems and Nanoengineering draws upon protein biomarkers contained in dermal interstitial fluid, what people generally recognize as the fluid inside blisters but surrounds all of the cells in skin. Learn More

Rice University researchers will contribute to a new project to make better batteries for electric vehicles. Rice materials scientist Ming Tang and his colleagues announced in July 2020 they will receive part of a $2.4 million grant from the United States Advanced Battery Consortium to develop low-cost, fast-charging batteries for vehicles. Learn More