COLUMBUS - Smart pills and smart people are among the research projects funded during September at The Ohio State University. The university's Board of Trustees accepted 238 research grants and contracts, totaling $23.5 million, at its meeting Friday (11/3).

An Ohio Department of Development grant of $500,000 will enable Marc J. Madou, professor of materials science and engineering, and his team to develop a business plan for commercialization of innovative drug delivery devices, such as the "smart pill" - tiny capsules that can be implanted underneath the skin to dispense medication as required. Madou is co-founder of ChipRx, a start-up company jointly operated by Ohio State, the University of Kentucky, the Edison BioTechnology Center Inc., and the Science and Technology Campus Corp. for the purpose of commercializing the capsule.

Three National Science Foundation (NSF) grants will fund Ohio State programs focusing on learning. A $734,000 grant from NSF's Division of Materials Research will help Hamish L. Fraser, professor of materials science, and John W. Wilkins, Ohio Eminent Scholar and professor of physics, study ways to reduce the amount of time required to develop new metallic materials for aerospace and automotive applications. The researchers will apply the tools of computer and information science to develop models that can predict the relationships between various alloy materials, resulting in a more rapid development of new materials. They also intend to develop educational materials that can be used by P-12, undergraduate, and graduate students to understand more fully the science of materials development and its importance in industrial competitiveness.

Kimberly S. Roempler and her colleagues in the School of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education received a $500,000 grant from NSF's Division of Undergraduate Education to create a national, web-based digital library of resources for teachers of undergraduate mathematics, science, and technology, aimed at improving math and science education.

The development of thinking is the focus of a research project headed by Vladimir M. Sloutsky in the College of Teaching and Learning and the Center for Cognitive Science, funded by a $403,000 grant from NSF's Division of Social, Behavioral and Economic Science. The researchers are examining how young children combine different sources of information when inferring biological properties. The participants, ages 3 to 12, will be presented with induction problems to examine the development of human thinking, particularly of inductive reasoning and concept formation. Sloutsky believes the project has implications for teaching grade-school science because it shows how children think when they lack scientific knowledge.

Since the start of the current fiscal year on July 1, 2000, Ohio State has been awarded nearly $65 million in research grants and contracts, compared with nearly $53 million awarded from July 1 through September 1999.

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