Progress 09/01/24 to 08/31/25

Outputs
Target Audience:Undergraduate students at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) and/or students from Southern Adventist University (SAU) who are interested in their preparation to enter USDA focused job areas in the USDA workforce. Undergraduate Students in Biology and Environmental Sciences. Students who are in a community college in a 2-year program at SAU or in a 4-year undergraduate program at UTRGV. Students who are looking to acquire research related skills, particularly in areas related to biomass deconstruction, saccharification and fermentation, metabolic engineering, process modeling, and economic and environmental evaluation. Faculty members involved in Biological and Environmental Sciences who may engage in collaborative research projects in the areas of biomass deconstruction, saccharification and fermentation, metabolic engineering, process modeling, and economic and environmental evaluation. Researchers engaging in biomass deconstruction, saccharification and fermentation, metabolic engineering, process modeling, and economic and environmental evaluation. The greater scientific, industrial and agricultural community who may be interested in biomass deconstruction, saccharification and fermentation, metabolic engineering, process modeling, and economic and environmental evaluation. Changes/Problems:While there were no problems that were insurmountable, there needed to be some changes to the operations and logistics of the REEU program as several processes needed to be altered. However, the alterations to the REEU program did not affect the educational efforts or the REEU program goal outcomes themselves nor the overall goals of the program as outlined in the original proposal. A challenge that the mentors at UNL experienced was ensuring student morale at times, as students entered with different majors and course experiences, and therefore they excelled on very different topics from each other which led to some concerns from the students as they were in close collaboration and tended to become self-critical when struggling with topics the other was able to comprehend easily. This at times led to division of labor across their prior expertise, rather than fully confronting the topics they found difficult, which required additional intervention, and we will be more prepared for with future cohorts. In addition our group has reflected on minor changes we'd like to make with respect to the diversity of topics as we attempted to cover upwards of 5 distinct modules over the summer, which may have been too ambitious as it typically takes upwards of three repeats of an procedure for students to gain confidence and some procedures required multiple days of planning and preparation. Unfortunately, this grant had experienced a perfect storm of issues in the first year. One main challenge was at the time the grant was awarded on 9/1/24 there was a change in the Project Director of the grant. The former PD, Dr. Jikai Zhao, originally wrote the grant when he was at UTRGV but during the time that the grant was under review, he moved universities and got a position at Kansas State University. Since the grant was awarded to UTRGV, this facilitated the need to switch the PD of the grant to a person at UTRGV. The current PD (Dr. Michael Persans) was assigned the PD position as he had 22 years of experience with being the PD or Co-PD of USDA grants at UTRGV. This switch and the subsequent re-tooling of the budget of REEU grant took some time in the fall semester 2024 and by the time all these had gotten resolved it was mid November 2024 before the grant was functionally implemented at UTRGV due to external and internal factors delaying the grant set up. Then in the spring 2025 semester, there was a delay in communications with USDA personnel beyond everyone's control, so it took 3 months to get some clarification on some lingering budget issues. In the beginning of the spring 2025, recruitment efforts began, and it soon became apparent that the recruitment and selection of students would take more time than anticipated. Some confusion over the participation of the Co-PIs in the recruitment process and who was responsible for which aspects of recruitment as well as the generation of recruitment materials had to be sorted out. But once that was resolved, recruitment proceeded, and we were able to recruit all the students who participated in this cohort year by the end of March 2025. However, this caused the students to miss some of the early seminars in the semester that were online from KSU. Late in the spring 2025 semester as the logistics and costs of the student REEU program were becoming apparent as we at UTRGV prepared to send the student participants to KSU and UNL for the summer of 2025, we found that the cost of the air travel, housing and incidental expenses that the student participants needed to successfully execute the summer program were underestimated in the original grant proposal. Unpredicted inflation and rising costs of all aspects of the student support for the summer program caused a shortfall in the number of students that we could support in the summer program. The original intent was for 6 students to travel to off-site to engage in research. 3 student participants would go to KSU and 3 student participants would go to UNL. Due to unforeseen logistical issues and increased costs, we were only able to send 2 student participants to KSU and 2 student participants 2 UNL and have a single non-traveling student participant at UTRGV. The delay in sorting this out was also compounded by the US government administrative issues and delays in contacting or interfacing with USDA personnel who could answer questions regarding our need to reduce the number of student participants as well as some budget clarification and to formally get the OK from the USDA to alter the number of students in the first-year cohort. While preserving the cohort model and grant related experiences for the student participants, it is apparent that in future years we would only be able to send 2 students per year instead of 3 students per year to KSU and we would only be able to send 2 students per year instead of 3 students per year to UNL in order to stay on budget for the grant period. Therefore, moving forward, we will send 2 student participants to KSU and 2 student participants to UNL each summer for research internships, with any remaining stipend money being spent on a non-traveling student from UTRGV each year. Having 4 traveling students and one non-traveling student would keep us on budget for the grant period and still allow us to execute the REEU program goals as outlined in the original proposal. We hope to start recruitment in the fall 2025 semester for the next cohort of student participants. Included in these recruiting efforts will be a recruitment seminar day where the previous student participants of the last cohort give presentations on their summer 2025 research projects. We intend to have the next cohort fully recruited by November of 2025 so they will be all set to participate on time in the seminars in the spring semester of 2026 as well as travel for the summer 2026 research internships at KSU and UNL. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In Spring 2025, we hosted a hybrid seminar series featuring 13 invited speakers--including graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and faculty--from Kansas State University, North Carolina State University, Michigan State University, Texas A&M University, University of Florida, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Utah State University, and Purdue University. The series engaged 65 undergraduate and graduate students from 13 different institutions, exposing them to cutting-edge research in bioprocessing and the circular bioeconomy. In Summer 2025, 5 undergraduate students participated in experiential learning activities under the mentorship of graduate students and postdocs from the PI/co-PI teams. They gained hands-on training in experimental design, data analysis, and technical communication. Their experiences culminated in a virtual symposium at the end of July 2025, where participants showcased their projects, developed professional presentation skills, and engaged in peer-to-peer learning. At UTRGV, there was a USA Jobs seminar, to help walk the students though the USA Jobs website and search for USDA employment opportunities. Students in the program were shown the USDA Jobs website and simulated applying for employment with the USDA for positions that they were qualified for. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Dissemination was done in the form of seminars about the success of the student intern research projects at their respective sites of the summer internship. In the fall 2025 semester the student interns will give seminars on their summer research internship to the UTRGV community. Dissemination of the program and its goals and recruiting for the program in the future years was placed on a Website at UTRGV. https://www.utrgv.edu/usdareeu/ What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we will continue advancing our integrated research and education goals. The spring seminar series will be expanded with invited speakers from academia, industry, and government to provide students with broader perspectives across several interdisciplinary modules. During fall of 2025, we will recruit and mentor a new cohort of 4-6 undergraduate students in experiential learning activities, offering hands-on training in laboratory research, data analysis, and professional communication. These experiences will culminate in a symposium where students will present their findings to peers and mentors. Additionally, dissemination efforts will be strengthened by expanding outreach to partner universities, professional societies, and conferences.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? At KSU (2 undergraduate interns from UTRGV): During this reporting period, we made significant progress toward our education and workforce development goals. First, we successfully launched the Spring 2025 seminar series (February-April), which introduced students to Bioprocessing and Process Simulation, providing both fundamental concepts and exposure to emerging technologies. Second, we implemented 8-week summer experiential learning activities, where students gained hands-on training in experimental design, equipment operation, data analysis, and presentation of results. These activities bridged theoretical knowledge with practical applications in food and agricultural contexts. Third, we initiated the 2025 symposium series at the end of July, which enabled students to present research outcomes, exchange insights with peers, and engage in cross-disciplinary dialogue with mentors. At UNL (2 undergraduate interns from UTRGV): Over the course of the 8 weeks, both students gained technical competency with fundamental laboratory skills - unit conversion for solution preparation, pipetting, use of specialized equipment, and data interpretation with respect to method of data sensing. The students managed to perform a repeat experiment to validate previous findings in our laboratory as a start to their experience and move forward to design a follow-up experiment to phenotype strains under pH and temperature conditions they selected, showing consideration to the number of replicates, control conditions, and sources of error in their experiments. In addition, they showed great willingness to learn complementary in silico methods of modeling to pair with their in vitro experiments. The students prepared a 45-minute presentation summarizing their work which they shared with the laboratory's group members during our group seminar, after which they took questions from group members. They answered most questions very effectively and demonstrated comprehension of the rationale, methodology, limitations, and logical next steps that would be taken to follow up their work. At UTK (1 undergraduate intern from Southern Adventist University): In Spring 2025, we gave research internship offers to three students from Southern Adventist University (SAU), and one student accepted the offer. For the months of June and July, the student worked closely with a senior graduate student in Trinh's lab. The student was highly motivated and eager to learn from the start. During the first week, the student completed safety training and was introduced to the project goal: "Engineering the thermophilic, cellulolytic Clostridium thermocellum for the conversion of cellulosic biomass to biofuels". The student learned biotechnology skills ranging from recombinant technology (modern cloning) to anaerobic fermentation and the operation of modern instrumentation (e.g., gel electrophoresis, PCR, anaerobic chamber, shakers, and microplate readers). The student was also trained in data collection, analysis, and presentation skills. While the student had taken some basic biology classes at SAU, this was the first exposure to advanced research techniques, and the student gained substantial hands-on experience. In addition to hands-on research activities, the student was tasked with reading relevant literature to better understand the project and identify knowledge gaps. At the end of the internship, the student successfully presented a summary of the summer research to the group. At UTRGV: (1 undergraduate student from UTRGV): One student engaged in research at UTRGV in the research area of the induction of lipids in algae through nutrient deprivation. The resulting induced triacylglycerols (TAGs) could be used for biofuels. The student learned techniques such as algae culture, nutrient deprivation induction of lipids, the extraction of TAGs, and the separation and characterization of TAGs via thin layer chromatography. The student also helped mentor two high school interns at UTRGV as well as helping the high school students prepare a presentation on their joint summer research projects in July 2025. The student will give a presentation along with the other research interns in the program during the fall 2025 semester on their research accomplishments. The student also engaged in the USA Jobs seminar that was given in the spring 2025 semester.

Publications