Research Focus:
Pioneering Biotechnology
Using his "lab on a chip," chemist Steven Soper has developed
a method of using lasers and plexiglass etchings as fine as a human
hair to sequence DNA—the code that creates a person's genetic
fingerprint.
Soper has transformed the traditional method of sequencing, which required
several days and expensive equipment, into a process where the DNA bases
can be identified in minutes using a set of tools located on a square-inch
circle of plexiglass. Soper's lab reduces the cost of sequencing from
$25,000 per day to $25 per day.
Soper is part of the Human Genome Project that is working to identify
all 80,000 to 100,000 human genes in an effort to analyze genetic mutations
and find ways to correct the errors in genetic structure.
Department of Chemistry
Using LSU's $40 million Center for Advanced Microstructures & Devices (CAMD), faculty members of the Department of Chemistry have micromachined high-throughput, inexpensive devices for accurate DNA sequencing.
External research support for 2001-02 reached a record $6.45 million, making Chemistry the top funded department at LSU, despite its relatively small size (only 28 tenure-track faculty). Chemical & Engineering News ranked LSU Chemistry as #38 in the nation for overall support for chemical research and development, #42 for prestigious federal research grant support, and #12 for spending on chemical research equipment.
The Department of Chemistry is a major participant in the National Science Foundation-IGERT project “Craft for Macromolecular Creativity,” the first in Louisiana and elsewhere to be devoted to graduate macromolecular studies.
The department's diversity of ideas and interests is echoed by the diversity of its graduate students. A remarkable 26 percent of the department's doctoral students are African American, the highest percentage of any major chemistry department in the country.
The department is developing graduate students who move on to research positions in academic, research, and industrial communities. Among the department's current and recent students are the recipients of a Fulbright Fellowship, a Proctor and Gamble Dissertation Fellowship, two National Research Service Award fellowships from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Analytical Division Summer Fellowship from ACS.
During the last five years, investment in cutting-edge equipment and instrumentation has provided the department with some of the best-equipped facilities in the country. Currently, the department houses six research-level mass spectrometers; seven high-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) instruments, including two devoted to solid-state studies; a new CCD X-ray crystallography setup; and an X-ray beamline dedicated to macromolecular structure determinations that is presently under construction at CAMD.
