Welcome to the WVU EPSCoR Site!

West Virginia University strives to enhance its competitive and synergistic research enterprise. To this end, the EPSCoR program at WVU targets multidisciplinary research in areas defined by the interfaces of the triad formed by molecular/life sciences, micro/nano science and technology, and information science and technology. In addition, the program builds the High Performance Computing (HPC) infrastructure to support these and other areas.

Development of the research infrastructure at the bio-molecular sciences - engineering Intersection capitalizes on the comprehensive physical and computer sciences, engineering, and health sciences resources available at West Virginia University. The University seeks to address breakthroughs at this intersection in niche areas and to develop new educational tools to help produce the future workforce supporting systems based on molecular design.

The EPSCoR program provides foundation support enabling the research of crosscutting faculty groups and providing key instrumentation and equipment. The program also provides support for the collaboration between West Virginia University and Marshall University in the area of molecular/life sciences.

The focus on Identification Science and Technology is based on the growing synergy between molecular science and engineering applications. Automated biometric identification systems measure a biological signature, and compare it to a database to render an application-dependent decision. New classes of biometric systems have the potential to exploit a wide range of physiological signals, basic metabolic pathways, and molecular signatures.

The new systems will provide innovative technologies for use in the War on Terrorism, and in other applications related to personal and national security. These systems also promise a revolutionary impact on health care and forensics as they can enable

• rapid identification of specific human conditions;
• automated administration of life-saving medical therapies;
• enhanced detection of environmental pollutants

The long-term research goals are to develop the fundamental science for identifying and quantifying biological and physiological signatures and to research innovative device, processing, and performance approaches for new integrated automated biometric systems.

To reach these goals WVU is building a research infrastructure in Molecular/Life Sciences to develop scientific understanding of life signatures at the most fundamental level, and in Micro/Nano Science and Engineering to design and use new devices to acquire biometric information. Research in Information Science and Engineering is proposed to develop data analysis and interpretation of the large volume of spatial and temporal biometric information.