Editors note: This story is the third in a series examining the new initiatives Iowa State has begun to enhance the quality of research in the university. Today’s story focuses on the Combinatorial Discovery Initiative.

The image of a row of scientists in white lab coats, performing individual experiments that differ by only a milliliter each, may soon be a relic of the past.

The Combinatorial Discovery Initiative seeks to dramatically speed lab work by allowing researchers to perform dozens of related experiments at once.

“In a traditional setting, you go into a lab and make a compound. Often, students or scientists in the past would set up a whole series of reactions, with just a slight change of temperature in each test tube,” said Gordon Miller, professor and chairman of chemistry.

“Combinatorial chemistry seeks to do that in a parallel way by doing it simultaneously,” Miller said. “In combinatorial chemistry you set up an experiment where you have many different experiments in the same place. We call it high-throughput testing.”

Miller gave a hypothetical example.

“Say you’re looking for a drug that’s the most effective. You can set up a matrix of 8-by-8 containers, each containing the drug. At one end of the grid it will be zero degrees, and the other 30 [degrees]. You’ll have a high concentration of the drug at one end, a low one at the other. Map out the grid, find out where the experiment had the best results and you’ve done 64 experiments.”

Miller said a grid can be miniaturized onto a silicon wafer. “You can heat up the chip and see where the reactions take place.”

The combinatorial method is about 10 to 12 years old, Miller said. Right now it is used largely in the pharmaceutical industry, testing the reactions of drugs against pathogens.

The initiative will fund four new faculty positions in chemistry, chemical engineering and mechanical engineering.

“The initiative will provide funding to attract scientists to work with scientists here to build the matrices we’d need to do research,” Miller said.

The idea is “still kind of getting its legs,” he said, but this initiative is important for Iowa State to keep abreast of new technology.

“The president [Geoffroy] expressed interest some time ago on building an area of excellence that we already have,” said John McCarroll, director of university relations.

“It’s gratifying that the administration cares enough to bring forward these research initiatives,” Miller said.