• Weapons Safety
  With a $1 million grant from the state of New Jersey, NJIT researchers are conducting a comprehensive study of current and emerging technologies that have the potential to be utilized in the manufacture of personalized weapons. The legislature indicated that if current technologies were inadequate, the university should work to develop effective and safe personalized weapons technology. The NJIT team has examined existing and proposed solutions such as mechanical trigger and holster locks activated by radio transmitters and magnetic rings worn by the user, finding no existing technology to be completely adequate.

The project team is focusing on the use of MEMS biometric sensors to provide working solutions the identification and operational problems that have prevented previous attempts to develop operational personalized weapons.


• Enriching Biomedical Research
  NJIT will equip six laboratories for state-of-the-art biomedical research as part of a statewide effort enhance New Jersey's position as a national and global leader in high technology research. The university received a grant of more than $700,000 from the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education as part of a state initiative to build research capacity in biomedical and other high technology research areas at New Jersey's colleges and universities. Researchers project that new laboratories, which build upon NJIT's existing strengths in biomedical engineering research, will stimulate New Jersey's rapidly growing medical device industry and contribute to the creation of a national center of excellence in biomedical engineering based in Newark's University Heights.
  



• Building for Health
  Ground was broken early in 2000 for the International Center for Public Health (ICPH), the first major research facility in University Heights Science Park in which NJIT is a founding participant. The new 161,600 square foot research building will house a world class infectious disease research complex, anchoring the Park's bioscience and biotechnology cluster. The new building is expected to be ready for occupancy early this year. The ICPH complements the multi-institutional New Jersey Center for Biomaterials and NJIT's Enterprise Development Center II, which border the NJIT campus and Science Park.
  
  

• Neuron Patterns:
  With grant support from the National Science Foundation, Farzan Nadim, assistant professor of mathematical sciences, is working to understand the electrical signals produced by complex networks in the central nervous system. To better understand the rhythmic patterns generated in the central nervous system, his team at the Center for Computational Biology and Bioengineering is focusing on the neuron firing patterns that activate muscles in the stomachs of lobsters and crabs to grind and digest food. By studying the nature of the interaction between the fast and slow rhythmic nerve impulses that activate muscles in this relatively simple nervous system, Dr. Nadim hopes to gain insights into neurological disorders such as epilepsy.
  
  
• Redeveloping Brownfields
  Over the next decade, intermodal container freight traffic in New Jersey is projected to double and increase six-fold by 2040. This increase in freight activity will create thousands of jobs in transportation, warehousing, packaging, assembly and other support services. But the increase also could compound roadway congestion, consume precious open space in rural and suburban areas, worsen the region's air quality and disrupt life in the region's communities.

In 1999, USDOT awarded NJIT and the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, two grants for a total of $1.5 million to explore ways to channel new or expanded freight-related businesses into the region's numerous abandoned or idled industrial brownfields.

The New Jersey Commission on Science and Technology R&D excellence program partially builds upon the work of the W.M. Keck Foundation Laboratory for Electro-Hydrodynamics of Suspensions, headed at NJIT by Nadine Aubry, F. Leslie and Mildred Jacobus. Professor of mechanical engineering, Professor of mathematics, and Acting Chair of the Mechanical Engineering Department, and Boris Khusid, Associate Professor of mechanical engineering. The laboratory is funded by a $500,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation. The New Jersey MFC Center is led by Professor Aubry.