College of Science assistant professor Calvin Henard (above) earned a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation and the Agile BioFoundry, a consortium of national laboratories committed to accelerating biomanufacturing.

His work will further study developing a methanotroph that can mitigate greenhouse gas emissions by eating carbon dioxide and methane. The project will create more advanced genetic tools that will reduce the genetic modification time of methanotrophs from months to a matter of weeks.

The proposal was one of only six selected nationwide for this inaugural funding opportunity. The research is part of UNT's BioDiscovery Institute, which includes an interdisciplinary team of researchers focused on developing innovative bio-based solutions.