COLUMBUS - Traffic monitoring by satellite, freely flowing streams and nature's cancer therapies are among the 218 research projects funded at The Ohio State University during May 2000.

The university's Board of Trustees formally accepted those research grants and contracts, totaling nearly $23 million, at its monthly meeting on Friday (7/7). From the beginning of the 1999-2000 fiscal year in July 1999 to May 2000, the Ohio State University Research Foundation received 2,146 research grants and contracts, totaling more than $200 million.

A Department of Transportation grant of $750,000 is funding an Ohio State Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Geodetic Science project designed to improve the nation's traffic flow. Joel Morrison, director of the Center for Mapping, and his team are monitoring traffic remotely through airborne or satellite platforms. The information collected will permit evaluation of current traffic flow and enable suggestions on how to improve areas of congestion. The project will result in new techniques for transportation studies.

The science of fluvial geomorphology - the study of earthly features - is leading a revolution in river engineering and stream restoration. With a $394,000 grant from the Great Lakes Protection Fund, Larry Brown and his colleagues at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center are focusing on improving ecological integrity and using natural stream characteristics to maintain channel stability and flood control. They hope to gain a greater understanding of the ecological, hydraulic, sedimentary and economic implications of drainage channel designs for streams in the Midwest.

One out of nine American women will fight breast cancer in her lifetime. Professor and chair of pharmacy Robert Brueggemeier and his team are using a $311,257 grant from the U.S. Army Medical Command to research cancer-fighting agents in natural substances. Natural products, such as the flavonoids found in plants, belong to a chemical class of molecules with a benzopyrone ring system. This innovative project focuses on the preparation of substituted benzopyrone analogs and the evaluation of their biological activities. The goal is to develop potent and selective new drugs for breast cancer therapy.

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