Michigan State University Academics - Research

Research

The university spent nearly $380,000,000 million in 2005-06 on research, capping a long history of productive research. In 1877, botany professor William J. Beal performed the first documented genetic crosses to produce hybrid corn, which led to increased yields. MSU dairy professor G. Malcolm Trout invented the process for the homogenization of milk in the 1930s. In the 1960s, MSU scientists developed cisplatin, a leading cancer fighting drug. Today Michigan State continues its research with facilities such as the U.S. Department of Energy-sponsored MSU-DOE Plant Research Laboratory and a particle accelerator called the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. In 2004, scientists at the Cyclotron produced and observed a new isotope of the element germanium, called Ge-60. In that same year, Michigan State, in consortium with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the government of Brazil, broke ground on the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research Telescope (SOAR) in the Andes Mountains of Chile. The consortium telescope will allow the Physics & Astronomy department to study galaxy formation and origins. Since 1999, MSU has been part of another consortium called the Michigan Life Sciences Corridor, which aims to develop biotechnology research in the State of Michigan. The College of Communication Arts and Sciences' Quello Center researches current issues of information and communication management. Avida, an artificial life software platform to study the evolutionary biology of self-replicating and evolving computer programs, is under active development by Charles Ofria in the Digital Evolution Lab of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Albert Fert an Adjunct professor at MSU was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics together with Peter Grünberg. In February 2010, a $25 million grant was awarded by the National Science Foundation to the university to develop a Bio/computational Evolution in Action Consortium (BEACON) within the BioMedical and Physical Sciences Building.