Wayne State University chemist Matthew Dent has won an NSF CAREER award, about $750,000 over five years, to study how microbes sense carbon monoxide. The project focuses on transcription factor proteins that detect CO through metal centers and then change gene expression. This is basic science, but it could feed into biosensor design, medical gas research, and microbial routes for turning waste gases into useful products. The research matters because carbon monoxide is both a common pollutant and a natural microbial fuel. Dent's lab will combine biochemistry, genomics, and spectroscopy to find new CO-sensing proteins and understand how they ignore similar gases like oxygen and nitric oxide. The award also includes student training and a community blood chemistry outreach program tied to Wayne State athletics.
