FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - The mimosa tree is, like the South's mythic kudzu, a virulent, hardy and invasive plant. If the groundbreaking plant-based research of two University of Arkansas engineers bears fruit, extract from the mimosa may invade both the energy and pharmaceutical industries.

Mimosa extract is being studied as a clean, cheap and renewable source of energy as well as a compound with medicinal properties that may one day have significant impact on diseases such as arthritis, diabetes and arteriosclerosis.

Ed Clausen, professor of chemical engineering, and Julie Carrier, associate professor of biological and agricultural engineering, are the first scientists to research compounds extracted from mimosa for bothenergy and medicinal potential.

The team has discovered and is quantifying critical compounds known as flavonoids in mimosa extract. Flavonoids are potent phytochemicals proved to prevent and reverse chronic disease.

Clausen and Carrier, who have previously studied the extraction of the antioxidant lycopene from watermelon, have already discovered antioxidant flavonoids such as hyperoside in the mimosa extract.

These flavonoids give the extract of the mimosa potential to be used as a nutritional complement to traditional medicine that could become a significant ally in the war against diseases, particularly those tied to obesity.

"Very long-term, big picture," said Carrier, "there was a body mass index study of Arkansas schoolchildren. Thirty-eight percent of Arkansas children came in at risk of becoming obese. Medicare is already an important component of Arkansas' health-care system, so think of the future Medicare costs. Maybe herbal medicine, using these extracted compounds for nutraceuticals, could be part of a prevention partnership."

As Clausen and Carrier seek to partner medicinal and energy properties, the key to their mimosa research is developing processes to add value - for farmers and consumers.

"Suppose you're the grower," Carrier explains. "You could also, before processing your mimosa crop for energy purposes, extract some valuable compound that could be destined for veterinary or human health-care use. Consumer health would benefit, and the producer would have more value for the crop."

Plants designed to facilitate both the energy production and the compound extraction could create jobs and even reduce pollution and waste.

Clausen and Carrier, for whom Clausen has been a mentor for some five years, began by extracting compounds from plant materials "sometimes for medicinal compounds, sometimes for biomass," Clausen explained.

The researchers were funded initially by a small grant to research biomass energy -- the use of plant and animal waste materials as a clean, renewable fuel -- and are now supported by the Arkansas Bioresources Institute.

As their research direction expands to examine the dual energy and medical potential of mimosa, Clausen and Carrier are now seeking funding from the National Institutes of Health. They are also forging a partnership with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences' Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center.

In addition to the medicinal compound extraction, the scientists are working toward quantifying how the ornamental plant can be most efficiently used as an energy crop. An Auburn University professor is supplying them with mimosa for the extraction process.

Dry mimosa can be burned in a boiler to produce either steam or electricity. The most likely way the mimosa energy crop could be converted to fuel is through the process of producing the liquid fuel ethanol. That is achieved by a fermentation process that breaks down the plentiful plant enzyme cellulose, which converts the energy crop to glucose, a sugar that can be fermented into ethanol.

Both researchers stress the compound extraction research is only one part of a diverse biomass project and both hope that their findings can one day make a difference in terms of energy, the economy and health.

"I don't know about Ed," Carrier said, smiling, "but if I could have an impact on health via nutrition I'd lay happily in my coffin. Seriously, I just mean that when I retire, I hope I will have helped people."

"My ultimate goal is a bit different," Clausen said. "We've been talking about biomass-to-energy for years and years and years, and nothing's really happened. I would just like to see an impact made in a nonfood area, such as energy and medicinal compounds; an impact that can really help a variety of people in a variety of ways."