What: In the inaugural session of its new “Conversations with State Leaders” series, North Carolina State University will host a talk by State Treasurer Janet Cowell.

Who:  Presented by NC State’s School of Public and International Affairs.

When: Thursday, Oct. 1, from 4 to 5 p.m.

Where: Caldwell Hall Lounge on the NC State campus.

Cost: The talk is free and open to the public.

Contact: Dr. Andrew Taylor, professor and department chair of political science, 919/515-8618 or andrew_taylor@ncsu.edu

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Researchers at North Carolina State University will trigger the genetic “on/off switches” in more than 10,000 trees to determine how each of the 33 lignin-producing genes impact the type and amount of lignin in wood. Understanding the role of lignin, which binds fibers together to form wood, has significant implications in the production of paper products, biofuels and construction materials.

Supported by a four-year, $3.72 million National Science Foundation Plant Genome Research grant, the research will be the most comprehensive analysis of lignin regulation ever undertaken and will lay a framework for future control of any biological process in trees and woody plants.

“More lignin creates an even stronger wood, so having lots of lignin can be advantageous in developing construction materials or wood-burning energy. To create products like paper or to produce bioethanol, however, lignin needs to be removed from wood,” says Dr. Vincent Chiang, Jordan Family Distinguished Professor for Natural Resource Innovation, co-director of NC State’s Forest Biotechnology Group and the study’s principal investigator. “Removing lignin to make paper products is the basis of a $300 billion global industry, and the efficient conversion of plant biomass to ethanol is largely determined by the lignin.

“To produce bioethanol from wood, lignin needs to be broken down by expensive chemical pretreatment,” Chiang continues. “When we reduce the lignin by modifying the genes, we can eliminate chemical pretreatment, which is typically 35 percent of the cost of producing ethanol from any lignin containing plant biomass.”

To develop a more comprehensive understanding of the lignin biosynthesis pathway, researchers will eliminate each pathway gene, one at a time. Then the team will determine the role each gene plays in producing a specific type and amount of lignin. Finally, the information will be turned into a mathematical model to create equations that determine how to create specific types and levels of lignin suited for any particular end use.

“We’re starting with lignin biosynthesis, but this ‘systems approach’ could really be used for any biological process in any plant,” Chiang says. “It could guide strategies for improved plant productivity for materials, energy and food.”

Working with Chiang is a group of 37 researchers, including co-principal investigators Dr. Ronald Sederoff, Distinguished University Professor and co-director of the Forest Biotechnology Group at NC State, Dr. Joel Ducoste, associate professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering at NC State, Dr. Fikret Isik, research associate professor of forestry and environmental resources at NC State, and Dr. John Ralph, professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Graduate and postdoctoral education and training in systems biology is a major emphasis. Six graduate students will conduct part of the proposed research for their dissertations. In addition, outreach and education efforts will focus on under-represented groups at the university and high school levels. The Kenan Fellows Program for Curriculum and Leadership Development will develop curricular materials to bring cutting-edge plant genomics and systems biology to high school classrooms.

“This project represents the efforts of a group of people getting together and trying to develop systems biology by integrating individual work that has been carried out over a lifetime,” Sederoff says. “We are using systems approaches that are typical of engineering, but that bring together biology from the perspective of developing predictive models. The integration of genomic and proteomic science to molecular biology to biochemistry to chemistry to statistics to wood products to predictive modeling makes this research really unique. This ‘switchboard’ approach will establish a new strategy for many future studies of biological processes in plants.”

They are filmy, uncomfortable – and if you happen to catch a draft, you’re in trouble.

“The fact is, when patients are in a hospital they are already feeling vulnerable – the last thing they need to deal with is a garment that intensifies that feeling by leaving them uncovered and overexposed,” says Dr. Traci Lamar, associate professor of textile and apparel technology and management at NC State.

In November 2006, Lamar and her team in the College of Textiles received a $236,110 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Pioneer Portfolio to design a patient garment that would allow patients to feel more dignified, while still providing easy access to medical personnel.

NC State’s research suggests that patients and caregivers alike hate the current gown. If a more dignified, respectful patient garment can be designed and taken up widely in the patient-care market, this seemingly subtle but innovative change may have far-reaching effects on patient engagement and the quality and safety of patient care.

“This garment almost needs to be all things to all people,” Lamar says. “We obviously want patients to feel comfortable during their hospital stay, but doctors and nurses still need to have easy access to check a patient’s heart rate, administer an IV or monitor blood pressure.”

Lamar’s team recently finished the first phase of the study in which they conducted patient and caregiver surveys, held focus groups with nurses and spoke with various medical personnel and stakeholders in the supply network about their needs in a gown.

Would they prefer something with pants? Do they have color preferences? Does wearing the traditional gown influence how patients feel and behave in the hospital environment? These are among the hundreds of questions Lamar and her colleagues asked.

“We learned so much from these responses,” Lamar says. “One major thing we took away from interviews with medical personnel is that in order for this redesigned garment to be a success, it first has to be feasible for a hospital to implement it.”

A handful of hospitals across the country have tried to implement a higher quality gown – but the challenges such as high cost and demands of required maintenance have kept them from widespread adoption.

“Within the College of Textiles, we have expertise in product areas from fiber to finished product – as well as sourcing, product development and marketing,” Lamar says. “This, combined with an in-depth understanding of the requirements for a successful patient garment, makes us feel confident that we will be able to design a patient garment that is dignified, affordable and accessible.”

Several concept samples of the gown were displayed at a reception prior to NC State’s annual “Art to Wear” fashion show. The concept gowns not only illustrated potential features of innovative patient garments, they were constructed of fabrics that had been printed or knitted within the college. All samples were derived from original textile designs by Kelly Roth, a College of Textiles graduate student. The fabrics were used to illustrate NC State’s capabilities from fabrication to end product design, and for the aesthetic value they brought to each sample.

“The textile design work we do in the College of Textiles is far ranging and includes everything for designing new firefighter turnout suits with thermal, chemical and biological protection; to hospital scrubs that protect doctors and nurses; to concept designs for the first landing on Mars,” says A. Blanton Godfrey, dean of the College of Textiles. “Medical textiles are a fast growing area of research and student work including new sutures, stents, vascular graphs, arteries and tissue engineering.”

Lamar says with the new technologies available, NC State could potentially design hospital garments that provide added value such as antimicrobial properties – to prevent spread or growth of viruses – or built-in sensors to monitor blood pressure.

The research phase of this effort, covered by the current grant, has just ended. The project has been successful to date, giving the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation a more comprehensive understanding of the market opportunity and requirements to introduce effective, affordable, feasible new patient garment designs. The next phase – when actual prototypes will be designed, developed and evaluated – has not been initiated at this point.

“Jeanne was one of those truly rare souls who made a better person out of anyone who knew her,” said Gwen Hazlehurst, director of enterprise application services at NC State. “Every day she helped to teach us all to be kinder to those around us, and her love for helping others never wavered – even as she fought the cancer that took her life.

Jeanne’s greatest passion was finding a cure for breast cancer. Thirteen years ago, she founded the NC Triangle Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure – a group that would be named Komen’s worldwide 2008 Affiliate of the Year for its efforts in eradicating a disease that affects more than 180,000 Americans each year.

“Jeanne’s enthusiasm, temperament and great courage were an inspiration to all who knew her,” said Nancy G. Brinker, founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, an international grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists. “Her work for Susan G. Komen for the Cure – to end breast cancer forever – was a labor of love, and an example of determination and leadership that has done much for North Carolina and for the breast cancer community.

“Jeanne’s good works will be her legacy, and while we mourn her loss today, we are grateful that we were able to know her.”

The N.C. Triangle Race for the Cure, which Peck organized in 1997 after participating in similar events held in other cities, has grown into the largest foot race held in North Carolina.

The 2008 event attracted close to 24,000 participants and raised nearly $2 million for breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment programs.

“We surpassed all expectations, and it was a very exciting day,” Peck told ncsu.edu staff members last year. “The first race also meant a lot for me personally, because it was a celebration of my 10th anniversary as a breast cancer survivor.”

Peck found an early Race for the Cure supporter in NC State women’s basketball coach Kay Yow, herself a breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed with the disease around the same time as Peck. Yow honored Peck with the “Courage Angel Pin” at NC State’s 2008 Hoops for Hope women’s basketball game – an award presented each year to a person dedicated to helping others fight cancer.

“Jeanne was obviously a special person for me to give it to,” Yow said. “I was really happy that she was chosen to be the person to receive it. She is so worthy because she has dedicated a lot of her life to helping others battle this disease.”

“Jeanne had a way of making hard work fun and always saw the good in people,” Hazlehurst said. “The hole she will leave in our hearts is immeasurable.”

Related Links:

• Online Condolences
• Susan G. Komen for the Cure
• Donate in Jeanne’s Honor or Memory.

It started out as a research project focused on getting rid of harmful bacterial accumulations called biofilms.

Now it has the potential to make conventional antibiotics work against stubborn, drug-resistant bacteria.

This unexpected development might have come as a surprise to the North Carolina State University researchers involved in the project, Dr. Christian Melander, assistant professor of chemistry, and Dr. John Cavanagh, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry.

What’s not surprising, however, is the researchers’ willingness to try seemingly unusual or unconventional methods to solve common problems. After all, getting rid of biofilms meant figuring out something odd to people who aren’t chemists: how to safely and efficiently mimic a sea sponge.

Sponging Away Biofilms
Bacteria have a number of ways of protecting themselves from antibiotics, including casing themselves in a protective barrier known as a biofilm. Biofilms comprise about 80 percent of the world’s microbial environment and are, according to statistics from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, responsible for up to 80 percent of all bacterial infections.

In addition to medical concerns – certain biofilms in the lung kill cystic fibrosis patients, for example – biofilms also have enormous impacts in agriculture and industry. Biofilms destroy crops, foul ship’s hulls and coat medical devices. Biofilms also coat – don’t be alarmed – your teeth. As anyone who has had plaque scraped from their teeth knows, getting rid of biofilms once they adhere to a surface is really difficult.

To create chemical compounds that can scrub away biofilms, Melander and Cavanagh looked to a particular sea sponge, Agelas conifera, that lives in the Caribbean Sea.

“Somehow, this sponge that can’t run away and that has no immune system stays remarkably clean while everything around it is covered in biofilms, so the sponge has some molecular way of keeping them at bay,” Cavanagh said. “We’ve never seen a sea sponge up close, but we understand the chemical processes going on. So Christian devised chemical compounds to mimic the sponge compound, ageliferin, that keeps the sponge free of biofilms. Our compounds are not toxic to mammals like ageliferin is, though, and we can make the compounds in enormous quantities.”

The NC State chemical compounds don’t kill biofilms outright, but cause them to revert to their single-celled form. Common antibiotics are then able to do their job of eliminating the single-celled bacteria.

Melander and Cavanagh have had great success achieving the original goal of their research, as every targeted biofilm has been defeated.

Working with researchers at Wake Forest University Medical School, for example, Melander and Cavanagh demonstrated they can break up deadly biofilms in a mimic of a cystic fibrosis lung. In collaboration with Dr. David Ritchie, professor of plant pathology at NC State, the researchers successfully eliminated bacterial spot disease from a field of pepper plants. Melander and Cavanagh have also dissolved their compound in marine paint and, working with Dr. Peter Moeller at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have shown in ocean tests that it assists in keeping marine biofilm growth to a minimum.

Rebooting Antibiotics
While thrilled with their successes, Melander and Cavanagh wondered if their compounds might do more than overcome biofilms. Could their molecules stop bacteria from protecting themselves in other ways? Was it possible to make multi-drug resistant bacteria susceptible to antibiotics once more?

“There are a lot of antibiotics lying around useless these days because bacteria have learned to resist them. We wondered if we could give antibiotics a new lease on life,” Cavanagh says.

The researchers certainly didn’t aim low. They decided to tackle two of the most insidious problems known today; methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and multi-drug resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (MDRAB). MRSA needs no introduction – it is a widespread and dangerous infection resistant to more than a dozen common antibiotics, including methicillin, penicillin and amoxicillin. MDRAB is arguably scarier. Up to 1,000 times more resistant than MRSA, it is found in hospitals and attacks patients who have compromised immune systems. MDRAB has become notorious recently since it plagues the military. Wounded soldiers are taken to hospitals where they become infected with MDRAB, often with fatal results.

Melander and Cavanagh showed that their compounds were able to overcome the multi-drug resistance of two nasty strains of MRSA and MDRAB. The MRSA strain from a hospital in Portugal was resistant to 16 antibiotics. The MDRAB strain was taken from a Canadian serviceman. In both cases, the NC State compounds enabled conventional antibiotics to work again. As Cavanagh puts it, “We have, in effect, taken the MR out of MRSA.”

Now, Melander and Cavanagh have formed a start-up company called Agile Sciences that is producing more of the chemical compounds and partnering with several drug companies to do further testing. The Research Triangle Park company is the “vehicle for the masses – the way to get things out to the general public to see if we can help,” according to Cavanagh, while he and Melander get back to work on “building a better mousetrap,” or making the compounds even better. Is it possible to make a chemical compound that stops bacteria from forming biofilms, for example, or place a chemical on surfaces so biofilms don’t attach? Those are the types of questions the NC State scientists are now examining.

“Meanwhile, there are a lot more biofilms to destroy,” Melander says “and we need to see whether we can make even more antibiotics work again.”

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“We should be trying to create a world where we share the future,” Clinton said. “We share the benefits and the opportunities; we share the burdens and the responsibilities.

PHOTO GALLERY: The Way Forward (photos by Roger Winstead)

One of those responsibilities is to work together solve the world’s problems.

“How do you go about taking the best of intentions and turning them into positive changes in people’s lives?” he asked. “You’ve got to say, ‘I want to be a person involved in the how.’”

President Clinton’s address, titled “The Way Forward,” charted a course for America’s future after the 2008 election and focused on the effects of new presidential leadership on the nation’s important issues and policy solutions.  His presentation was part of NC State’s Millennium Seminar Series, which brings national and international figures to campus to discuss the world’s most pressing problems.

Clinton called on the “How To” Generation to get to work.

“I don’t think it’s good enough anymore to define your citizenship by being a good, honest worker and a taxpayer and someone who votes,” Clinton said.  “We have a ‘crisis of doing’ in the world.  We have all of these problems out there that people know are problems, that they can talk about until the cows come home, but nobody knows the how – how do you turn good intentions into real changes?”

Clinton cited what he called the two most salient points of the presidential election: The election of the first African American president, and widespread evidence that we are beyond racial polarization because we are a “multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious society.”

“We have learned to see our differences as making life a lot more interesting.  We value our differences.  Our futures are bound up together.  That’s what we mean by ‘communitarianism.’

“The fundamental fact of the 21st century is our interdependence.  Our differences make our lives more interesting but our common humanity matters more.  We have to find some way to come together or we can’t go forward.”

Chancellor James Oblinger introduced Clinton and led the audience in a moment of silence to commemorate the life of basketball coach Kay Yow.  Yow died Saturday following a long bout with cancer.

Bill Cowher, Super Bowl-winning coach and NC State alumnus, will deliver the commencement address.

Chancellor James Oblinger will confer 2,917 degrees - 53 associate’s, 1,787 bachelor’s, 831 master’s and 246 doctoral degrees - on 2,789 students during the ceremony. Thirty-three valedictorians will be recognized for earning perfect 4.0 grade point averages during their academic careers at NC State.

Oblinger will also confer honorary degrees on Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) and a leader in the effort to assist minority and low-income students in academic achievement, and Dr. Carl E. Wieman, a Nobel Prize-winning professor of physics at the University of British Columbia (UBC).

NC State officials do not expect major traffic congestion, but advise attendees to be in their seats by 8:15 a.m. NC State’s Amalgam Brass Ensemble will begin playing at 8:30 a.m., and graduates will march onto the arena floor at 9 a.m. More commencement information is available online at www.ncsu.edu/registrar/graduation/index.html.

Note to editors: Media seating will be provided near the front of the stage on the left-hand side. NC State News Services personnel will be available to assist reporters.

Dr. Kevin Potter, research assistant professor in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at NC State, and colleagues from Camcore, the largest international tree conservation partnership in the world, surveyed 20 separate populations of eastern hemlock in the southeastern United States to determine which ones contained the most genetic diversity. Their findings appear in the March edition of the journal New Forests.

Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is an aesthetically and ecologically important species of tree found from eastern Canada to the Great Lakes states and south along the entire Appalachian mountain range. Since the hemlock tends to grow alongside streams, it plays an important role in regulating water temperature, and its loss could affect the many species of fish and insect life that inhabit mountain streams.

The tree is threatened by the prolific spread of an exotic insect known as the hemlock wooly adelgid (Adelges tsugae), which kills the trees in as few as four years. In the past decade, the hemlock wooly adelgid has infested more than 50 percent of the eastern portion of the hemlock’s range, and the number is expected to grow because the adelgid, an introduced species from Asia, has no natural predators in North America.

Some researchers believe the best hope for the tree’s salvation lies in “ex situ,” or “off-site,” preservation efforts, like those spearheaded by Camcore. Ex situ preservation involves collecting seeds from a species and planting them in preservation areas in other countries, with the hope that the species can one day be reintroduced.

Potter and his colleagues studied 20 populations of eastern hemlock scattered throughout the Southeast, an area believed to have served as a population refuge for the tree during the last ice age. They discovered the greatest genetic variation in isolated populations located on the eastern side of the Appalachian range, with a trend of decreased genetic diversity moving west into the Appalachians and to the opposite side of the mountain chain.  The results will guide Camcore’s collection efforts.

“You need as much genetic diversity as possible in your sample,” says Potter, who conducted the research while a post-doctoral fellow with Camcore. “When a species goes through this sort of a ‘genetic bottleneck’ event, where its numbers really decline, you may find that the survivors may express traits that are beneficial in terms of surviving insect infestation, but that they’ve lost traits that help them survive other events, like drought. For preservation to be successful, you need trees with the largest possible variety of beneficial traits.”

The test of the system will include a tone and voice test and conclude with the “all clear” tone.  The test should take 5–10 minutes.

Environmental Health and Public Safety has arranged for test participants to be stationed at the exterior of buildings throughout campus to determine the extent to which the audible alerts can be heard.

The system will be tested on the first Monday of each month at noon.  After this initial test, subsequent monthly tests will include only the “all clear” tone.  The voice and tone will be tested quarterly.

In certain emergency situations, a tone warning followed by voice instructions (such as “seek shelter and go to the home page for further instruction”) may be employed.  An all–clear tone would sound once the situation is stabilized.

For more information about the NC State WolfAlert Audible Warning System and to hear the tones go to http://www.ncsu.edu/emergency-information/wolfalert.php

In last week’s test of the WolfAlert text messaging system, about 12,000 text messages were sent to students and employees who had registered to receive the text messages. More than 10,000 of those messages were delivered in about 15 minutes. (If you haven’t registered, click on MyPack portal at the top of the home page, log in and follow the “How to sign up for WolfAlert” link.)

David Rainer, associate vice chancellor for environmental health and public safety, said the test was a success.

“Our goal was to test the system from a technical standpoint and to learn what we could from our first attempt to send a message to everyone who registered,” Rainer said. “We had some technical glitches, but other than that, the system worked the way it should have. The one technical glitch we experienced involved a provider who was in the middle of a technical update of its text messaging. So the vast majority of the company’s customers did not receive the message. We were told that the problem will be corrected in the next two weeks.”

The text message went out at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 20. A follow-up broadcast email to the entire campus asked recipients to help evaluate the test by filling out a survey, which asked questions such as what time the message was received and who is your service provider.

Rainer said about 6,500 people filled out the survey in response to the test. Comments ranged from “What a great idea” to “What if I’m in class with my phone turned off?”

“This is definitely a learning process,” Rainer said. “For us as university administrators and for the recipients of the messages.

“One of the things we all have to realize is that text messaging in an emergency is never going to be instantaneous, as it is when one individual is texting another. In fact, the more people who register for the service, the longer the interval between sending the message and the last person receiving it.”

He said the university has employed a range of emergency communications tools in addition to text messaging, including home page announcements, broadcast email, audible alerts, a network of building liaisons, the campus hotline and campus and external news media.

“Having a wide range of options for getting the word out gives us the best chance of reaching a critical mass of people in as little time as possible,” Rainer said.

The system will be tested once per semester.