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Displaying results 1 - 25 of 206 for ua researcher. Subscribe to this search

  1. article What's Up UA? - $6M Grant Boosts Molecular Heart Research

    Wednesday, June 19, 2013 1:00 pm

    A $6 million grant from Fondation Leducq, a French non-profit health research foundation fostering international efforts to combat cardiovascular disease, will boost an interdisciplinary, collaborative push to better understand how the heart deals with mechanical stress under healthy conditions and in the case of a defect. 
     
    Henk Granzier, a professor in the department of physiology and the Molecular Cardiovascular Research Program at the University of ArizonaCollege of Medicine, is one of two principal investigators leading the project, which was awarded as a transatlantic network grant, connecting scientists from seven institutions in Europe and the U.S. 
     
    "Many networks compete for this grant, and it is a great honor to be one of the very few that were selected for funding," said Granzier, who will oversee all projects, coordinate and communicate with the network collaborators and assist designing experiments, analyzing data and publishing scientific results. 
     
    The research endeavor revolves around titin, a protein that acts as a "molecular spring" and plays important roles in how muscle cells register mechanical stress (see UANews story, "UA Researcher Studies Protein's Link to Heart Disease"). Titin has moved into the spotlight of cardiovascular research once it was found that mutations in the titin gene are involved in many heart defects.
     
    "With this project, we want to try and understand the interplay between mechanical stress and heart disease, and how titin factors into all of that," said Granzier, who is also a member of the UA BIO5 Institute and holds the Allan and Alfie Norville Endowed Chair for Heart Disease in Women Research at the UA's Sarver Heart Center. 
     
    "You have billions of titin molecules in your heart, where they help it contract and expand," he said. "Titin is very important to make sure your heart doesn't expand too much or too little, so it doesn't overfill or under-fill with blood."
     
    But the molecule, which occurs not only in heart muscle but skeletal muscle as well, does much more than that. 
     
    "Titin acts as a sensor enabling a heart muscle cell to measure mechanical stress," Granzier explained. "When you lift weights, titin senses the added load and interacts with proteins that trigger signaling cascades, which in turn activate genes to crank out more muscle material, so your muscles become bulkier."
     
    Scientists hope that once they better understand the processes at a molecular level, they can develop therapies for conditions that are untreatable now. 
     
    "A big goal of this grant is to understand how mutations in titin cause pathological changes," Granzier said. "We'll focus largely on titin and all the proteins that interact with it. So far, we know of more than 20."
     
    For example, one particular mutation in the titin gene is known to cause a disease called ARVC, or arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, an inherited heart muscle disorder where damaged heart muscle is gradually replaced by non-muscle tissue. 
     
    "This particular mutation makes titin more susceptible to breaking down," Granzier said. "Others truncate the protein so it loses pieces of its functionality."
     
    BIO5's Genetically Engineered Mouse Models (GEMM) Core, directed by Tom Doetschman, developed a mouse model allowing Granzier to study the mechanisms that underlie this disease. 
     
    "We genetically engineered this mutation to replicate the human disease in the mouse heart, and then we study the mouse to tease apart the disease mechanism under controlled conditions," Granzier said.
     
    A different series of genetic alterations in titin's DNA sequence was found to be the causal defect in about one third of individuals afflicted with a condition called dilated cardiomyopathy – another form of heart failure. Affected individuals frequently develop severe heart failure in their 30s or 40s.
     
    "We want to study this in this grant as well," said Granzier. "How do the mutations lead to the diseased heart?"
     
    To find answers, Granzier and his colleagues apply mouse genetics to eliminate certain titin-binding proteins and see how that changes the sensing and the enlargement of the heart.
     
    "What we want to know is, 'If you have a certain titin binding partner missing, how does the system respond and possibly cause diseases?'" Granzier said, adding that the six diseases that have so far been linked to titin are likely only the tip of an iceberg.
     
    "As more and more high-throughput sequencing technologies become available, my guess is we will find many more diseases that involve titin," he added. "And as awareness of these defects increases, it will become possible to screen family members for such mutations."
     
    Granzier's lab has established a worldwide reputation in titin research by studying the protein and its interactions at every scale, from the individual molecule to the entire heart.
     
    Using an atomic force microscope, the group can make measurements on single titin molecules.
     
    "We can measure characteristics like strength and elasticity of the molecule, and how those are affected by mutations in the titin gene," Ganzier explained. "We also study the mechanics of single cells isolated from the heart. And we can genetically alter the titin gene, take out pieces or add pieces to it, to mimic the mutations that we know exist in patients."
     
    Through these studies, the group discovered that the mutations that causes ARVC weakens the molecule, causing the "spring structure" to unfold. 
     
    "Normally the molecule folds into domains," Granzier said. "It resembles a string of pearls, and when you stretch the molecule, the pearls line up and you pull them taut. But if you have a mutation, it weakens the structure of the domains. The pearls unravel and once the molecule starts breaking down, the mechanical sensing ability is destroyed and the elasticity is messed up."
     
    Although therapies might not become available for a while, knowing what causes the trouble is a critically important first step, Granzier pointed out.
     
    Some day, therapeutics could be developed that interact with the weak spot in the mutated titin molecule and make it stronger. Another approach, currently tested for muscular dystrophy, involves drugs homing in on the machinery inside the cell that manufactures the protein from its genetic blueprint, instructing it to skip the mutated parts. 
     
    "Once we understand the sensing mechanisms of titin and how they are affected by mutations, we could ultimately come up with drugs that lessen the impact of the disease or prevent it altogether," Granzier said.
     
    Under the network grant, the collaboration will exchange expertise, reagents, genetically modified mouse models and researchers to maximize collaboration and results and tackle all aspects of these diseases. 
     
    "It is a huge honor for Henk and the UA to lead this international, multidisiplinary project from Fondation Leducq to decipher the impact of mutations in contractile proteins on human cardiac myopathies," said Carol Gregorio, who heads the Molecular Cardiovascular Research Program and is a collaborator on the grant. 
     
    In addition to the UA, the main research centers participating on the grant are the University of Heidelberg, Germany; University of California San Diego School of Medicine; National Heart & Lung Institute at the Imperial College London; the University of Liverpool; French biotech company Genethon; and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. 
     

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  2. article What's Up UA? - Happy 90th Birthday, Steward Observatory

    Friday, June 14, 2013 12:33 pm

    "We have the best location of any educational institution in America. The University ought to make itself famous with a telescope."

    With those words, part of his long and persistent effort to bring a world-class observatory to the University of Arizona campus, pioneering astronomer Andrew Ellicott Douglass set forth his best argument.

    Arriving at the UA in 1906 from the Lowell Observatory outside Flagstaff, Douglass sought almost immediately to take advantage of Tucson's dry climate and clear night skies, using his renowned 1910 Halley's Comet observations as proof of the region's unique potential. As he wrote in a 1908 guest editorial in the Arizona Daily Star, "Nothing advertises a climate better than a big telescope."

    The paper's editors agreed: "The fame of its observatory would be greater than any other institution of like character in the United States. The atmospheric conditions are such as to demand recognition and consideration from the scientific men of all nations," according to a Feb. 6, 1910 editorial.

    Douglass unsuccessfully lobbied the state Legislature for funds but in 1916 secured a $60,000 donation, at first anonymously from Oracle resident Lavinia Steward, in memory of her late husband Henry B. Steward. Construction on Steward Observatory began that year, and on April 23, 1923, the UA formally dedicated the facility, with its state-of-the art 36-inch reflecting telescope at last making Tucson an astronomer's paradise.

    "Not only was this the first big donation (to the UA), it was the start of research at the University in a very real way," says Buell Jannuzi, current director of Steward Observatory and head of the astronomy department.

    From those ambitious beginnings – the Steward telescope was nicknamed the "All-American" because it was the first astronomical telescope built using all American-made products – the observatory and astronomy department have branched out in all directions, to radio, X-ray and ultraviolet astronomy, adaptive optics, space-based telescopes and the renowned Steward Observatory Mirror Laboratory, which constructs gigantic mirrors for the next generation of astronomy, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope and the Giant Magellan Telescope.

    "Douglass wanted more than just a major telescope for the University of Arizona; he wanted Steward Observatory to produce discoveries and to share them with the world. I think he would agree that his successors have continued to develop the quality of research we're producing, using technological innovations not as the end points, but as tools to further scientific discovery," Jannuzi says. "Our aspirations are the same as those of Douglass; we are just pursuing them with more modern tools."

    Built on what was then the far east side of Tucson, Steward Observatory has been overtaken by campus expansion yet remains an iconic fixture of the UA, its white brick and dome now housing the 21-inch Raymond E. White Jr. Reflector telescope, used primarily for undergraduate education and public outreach, which has been a part of the observatory's mission since its dedication. The original 36-inch scope relocated to Kitt Peak in 1963 and remains in use by the Spacewatch Project.

    Leadership for Steward Observatory has maintained a remarkable continuity, with just seven directors over its 90 years, including Peter A. Strittmatter, who served 37 years as director and led a remarkable period of growth and development.

    "I think (Douglass) would agree the soul is still there in the observatory, and we're continuing the mission he set out for us," Jannuzi says, reflecting on what drew him to astronomy in the first place. "It's fun, like philosophers or theologians do, to think about the big questions. Often times we're working on some small part of a research project, but it's all part of a larger effort to understand the universe and how we relate to it."

     

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  3. article What's Up UA? - Marks on Martian Dunes May Reveal Tracks of Dry-Ice Sleds

    Wednesday, June 12, 2013 11:41 am

    NASA research indicates that hunks of frozen carbon dioxide – or dry ice – may glide down some Martian sand dunes on cushions of gas similar to miniature hovercraft, plowing furrows as they go.
     
    Researchers deduced this process could explain one enigmatic class of gullies seen on Martian sand dunes by examining images from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, or MRO, and performing experiments on sand dunes in Utah and California.
     
    "I have always dreamed of going to Mars," said Serina Diniega, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, or JPL, in Pasadena, Calif., and lead author of a report published online by the journal Icarus. "Now I dream of snowboarding down a Martian sand dune on a block of dry ice."
     
    The hillside grooves on Mars, called linear gullies, show relatively constant width – up to a few yards or meters across – with raised banks or levees along the sides. Unlike gullies caused by water flows on Earth and possibly on Mars, they do not have aprons of debris at the downhill end of the gully. Instead, many have pits at the downhill end.
     
    "In debris flows, you have water carrying sediment downhill, and the material eroded from the top is carried to the bottom and deposited as a fan-shaped apron," said Diniega. "In the linear gullies, you're not transporting material. You're carving out a groove, pushing material to the sides."
     
    Images from MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, or HiRISE, camera, operated by the University of Arizona, show sand dunes with linear gullies covered by carbon dioxide frost during the Martian winter. The location of the linear gullies is on dunes that spend the Martian winter covered by carbon dioxide frost. The grooves are formed during early spring, researchers determined by comparing before-and-after images from different seasons. Some images have even caught bright objects in the gullies.
     
    Scientists theorize the bright objects are pieces of dry ice that have broken away from points higher on the slope. According to the new hypothesis, the pits could result from the blocks of dry ice completely sublimating away into carbon-dioxide gas after they have stopped traveling.
     
    "Linear gullies don't look like gullies on Earth or other gullies on Mars, and this process wouldn't happen on Earth," said Diniega. "You don't get blocks of dry ice on Earth unless you go buy them."
     
    That is exactly what report co-author Candice Hansen, of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., did. Hansen has studied other effects of seasonal carbon-dioxide ice on Mars, such as spider-shaped features that result from explosive release of carbon-dioxide gas trapped beneath a sheet of dry ice as the underside of the sheet thaws in spring. She suspected a role for dry ice in forming linear gullies, so she bought some slabs of dry ice at a supermarket and slid them down sand dunes.
     
    That day and in several later experiments, gaseous carbon dioxide from the thawing ice maintained a lubricating layer under the slab and also pushed sand aside into small levees as the slabs glided down even low-angle slopes.
     
    The outdoor tests did not simulate Martian temperature and pressure, but calculations indicate the dry ice would act similarly in early Martian spring where the linear gullies form. Although water ice, too, can sublimate directly to gas under some Martian conditions, it would stay frozen at the temperatures at which these gullies form, the researchers calculate.
     
    "We have seen blocks of ice sitting in the channels in our HiRISE images," said Alfred McEwen, a professor of planetary science at the UA who leads the HiRISE program who co-authored the paper. "Later, we saw them disappear by sublimation, in a matter of months."
     
    Although the HiRISE camera doesn't allow researchers to measure the blocks' composition directly, McEwen said they behaved in the right way for carbon dioxide ice.
     
    "Water ice block should be stable for much longer periods of time, and we know there is ample carbon dioxide in the area where those gullies are seen – in the higher latitudes of Mars' southern hemisphere."
     
    "The origin of these linear gullies has been a mystery," McEwen added. "This study provides some direct clues as to how they are forming. The experiments using the dry ice show that our hypothesis is plausible."
     
    Hansen also noted the process could be unique to the linear gullies described on Martian sand dunes.
     
    "There are a variety of different types of features on Mars that sometimes get lumped together as 'gullies,' but they are formed by different processes," she said. "Just because this dry-ice hypothesis looks like a good explanation for one type doesn't mean it applies to others."
     
    McEwen said the study adds an exciting new piece to growing series of discoveries about ongoing, active processes shaping the surface of the Red Planet. 
     
    "We are finding Mars is not Earth-like as it looks," he said. "Dry ice doesn't naturally exist here on Earth. MRO and the HiRISE instrument are healthy, and the longer the mission goes on, the longer we can observe and really understand these processes over the long term."
     
    McEwen said the team is planning to continue to monitor these sites to see more ice blocks in action.
     
    "We can't get any information from other instruments on the orbiter, because the features are too small," he explained. "But we are learning more about the distribution and latitude of those features and when they are active."
     
    The UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory operates the HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colo. JPL manages MRO for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems of Denver built the orbiter.
     

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  4. article What's Up UA? - Astronomers Gear Up to Discover Earth-Like Planets

    Friday, June 7, 2013 12:05 pm

    If one looks only for the shiniest pennies in the fountain, chances are one misses most of the coins because they shimmer less brightly. This, in a nutshell, is the conundrum astronomers face when searching for Earth-like planets outside our solar system.
     
    Astronomers at the University of Arizona are part of an international team of exoplanets hunters developing new technology that would dramatically improve the odds of discovering planets with conditions suitable for life – such as having liquid water on the surface.
     
    The team presented its results at a scientific conference sponsored by the International Astronomical Union in Victoria, British Columbia.
     
    Terrestrial planets orbiting nearby stars often are concealed by vast clouds of dust enveloping the star and its system of planets. Our solar system, too, has a dust cloud, which consists mostly of debris left behind by clashing asteroids and exhaust spewing out of comets when they pass by the sun.
     
    "Current technology allows us to detect only the brightest clouds, those that are a few thousand times brighter than the one in our solar system," said Denis Defrère, a postdoctoral fellow in the UA'sdepartment of astronomy and instrument scientist of the Large Binocular Telescope Interferometer, or LBTI.
     
    He explained that while the brighter clouds are easier to see, their intense glare makes detecting putative Earth-like planets difficult, if not impossible. "We want to be able to detect fainter dust clouds, which would dramatically increase our chances of finding more of these planets."
     
    "If you see a dust cloud around a star, that's an indication of rocky debris, and it increases the likelihood of there being something Earth-like around that star," said Phil Hinz, an associate professor of astronomy at the UA's Steward Observatory. 
     
    "From previous observations, we know that these planets are fairly common," he added. "We can expect that if a space telescope dedicated to that mission were to look around a certain area of sky, we'd expect to find quite a few."
     
    Hinz and Defrère are working on an instrument that will allow astronomers to detect fainter clouds that are only about 10 times – instead of several thousand times – brighter than the one in our solar system. 
     
    "It's like being here in Victoria and trying to image a firefly circling a lighthouse in San Francisco that is shrouded in fog," Defrère said about the technological challenge. 
     
    "That level of sensitivity is the minimum we need for future space telescope missions that are to characterize Earth-like planets that can sustain liquid water on the surface," he explained. "Our goal is to eliminate the dust clouds that are too bright from the catalog of candidates because they are not promising targets to detect planets suitable for life."
     
    "With a bright dust cloud, which is 1,000 times brighter than the one in our solar system, its light becomes comparable to that of its star, which makes it easier to detect," explained Hinz. 
     
    Fainter clouds, on the other hand, can be about 10,000 times less bright than their star, so it becomes difficult or impossible for observers to make out their faint glow in the star's overpowering glare. 
     
    Funded by NASA, the team is in the middle of carrying out tests to demonstrate the feasibility of these observations using both apertures of the Large Binocular Telescope, or LBT, in Arizona. The project aims at determining how difficult it would be to achieve the desired results before committing to a billion-dollar space telescope mission. 
     
    According to Hinz, NASA's goal is to be able take a direct picture of Earth-like, rocky planets and record their spectrum of light to analyze their composition and characteristics such as temperature, presence of water and other parameters.
     
    "To do that, one would need a space telescope specifically designed for this type of imaging," he said. "Our goal is to do a feasibility study of whether it would be possible to distinguish the light emission of the planet from the background emission of the dust cloud through direct observation."
     
    The researchers take advantage of a technique known as nulling interferometry and the unique configuration of the LBT, which resembles a giant pair of binoculars. 
     
    "We combine the light from two apertures, cancel out the light from the central star, and with that it becomes easier to see the light from the dust cloud," Hinz explained. "To achieve this, we have to cause the two light paths to interfere with each other, which requires lining them up with very high precision. We'll always have some starlight left because of imperfections in the system, but our goal is to cancel it out to a level of 10,000 to get down to where we can at least detect the faint glow of the dust cloud."
     
    The work presented at the conference used the same technique with the two large telescopes of theKeck Observatory in Hawaii in order to detect the dust cloud around the star Fomalhaut located 25 light years from our sun. 
     
    "Based on our observations at the European Very Large Telescope Interferometer, we knew that Fomalhaut was surrounded by a bright dust cloud located very close to the star," said Jérémy Lebreton, principal investigator of the study, who is at the Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique in Grenoble, France. 
     
    "Using the Keck Interferometer, we found out that Fomalhaut has a less bright, more diffuse cloud orbiting close to the habitable zone that resembles the Main Asteroid Belt in our solar system. This belt is likely in dynamical interaction with yet undetected planets."
     
    The study presented here is one in a series of three publications and was conducted in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam; the University of Liège in Belgium; NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, Pasadena, Calif.; the University of Paris; and the University of Arizona in Tucson, Ariz. 
     
    Approximately 250 scientists from around the world convened at the scientific conference, Exploring the Formation and Evolution of Planetary Systems, held June 3-7 in Victoria to discuss the latest observations and theories about exoplanetary systems.
     

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  5. article Pet News - Free adult cats in June for national Adopt-a-Shelter-Cat Month

    Thursday, May 30, 2013 10:00 am

    Every year about this time, the cat adoption room at Pima Animal Care Center is flooded with kittens, leaving lots of kitties in need of new homes. 

  6. article What's Up UA? - The New Face of Mining: Women Carving Out a Place in Surging Industry

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013 1:06 pm

    They roam the remotest corners of the world, scale the highest mountains and descend deep into the Earth.

  7. article Happenings: Week of May 26

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013 4:00 am

    THEATER 

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  8. article What's Up UA? - Eller College to Bring MBA Program Online

    Thursday, May 16, 2013 11:12 am

    The University of Arizona Eller College of Management's internationally recognized MBA program will be available online beginning this fall. Applications for the program now are being accepted.

    "Business schools need to be responsive to the changing needs of their students, and we are committed to offering many modes of graduate business education," said Len Jessup, dean of the Eller College. "Making the MBA program more flexible for highly qualified students is part of our broader effort to expand access to the University of Arizona and will go a long way toward increasing its footprint in Arizona and beyond."

    Hope Schau, associate dean of Eller MBA programs, added, "Offering our program in an online format opens it up to a new segment of students. We pride ourselves on meeting the needs of highly qualified students at all stages of their careers, and this new offering reflects that commitment."

    With a focus on innovation, application and communication, the Eller MBA experience is designed to give graduates what they need to effectively lead in today's changing global marketplace. Like its full-time, evening and executive MBA formats, the Eller online MBA program is fully accredited by the International Association for Management Education.

    The UA has chosen Academic Partnerships, or AP, one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States, to help convert the program into an online format, recruit students and support student retention efforts. AP will work closely with Eller faculty to ensure that the new online degree program maintains the highest educational standards.

    The company also will use its integrated marketing and branding strategies to extend the University's reach, increasing the enrollment of highly qualified students.

    The UA's new online MBA program will begin in September 2013. Click here to apply or learn more about the program.
     
    The Eller College is internationally recognized for pioneering research, innovative curriculum, distinguished faculty, excellence in management information systems, entrepreneurship and social responsibility. U.S. News & World Report ranks the Eller undergraduate program No. 14 among public business schools and three of its programs are among the top 20 – entrepreneurship, MIS and management. 

    U.S. News & World Report ranks the Eller MBA full-time program No. 44 in the U.S. and No. 21 among public business schools. The college leads the nation's business schools in generating grant funds for research.

    In addition to a full-time MBA program, the Eller College offers an evening MBA program and the Eller Executive MBA. The Eller College supports approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 700 graduate students on the UA campus.

    Academic Partnerships helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation. Serving more than 40 public institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States. 

    The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education. AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally.

     

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  9. article What's Up UA? - UA Offers Continued Career Support for New Grads Entering Workforce

    Saturday, May 11, 2013 11:37 am

    This weekend, thousands of newly minted University of Arizona alumni will wake up and face the question before all new college graduates: What's next?

    For some, the answer is already known. To date, 26 percent of respondents to UA Career Services' annual "career destinations" survey of graduating seniors say they have already secured full-time, post-graduation employment in their field. Another 17 percent say they have been accepted into graduate school.

    For those who still aren't quite sure what the future holds, help is available from their alma mater.

    "Graduating students still have access to all the resources Career Services has to offer," said Eileen McGarry, director of UA Career Services. "That includes a rich, very robust Web suite of resources and events."

    For just $20 a year, UA grads can continue to access a variety of Career Services resources, including online job postings, career fairs, seminars, one-on-one career counseling, the opportunity to participate in on-campus interviews with select employers and more. For members of the UA Alumni Association, Career Services access is included in membership.

    "If students haven't started looking for jobs or haven't had the success they wanted, there still is a lot to tap into," McGarry said. "Our staff offers career counseling by appointment. They also offer walk-in advice to help get that resume sharpened, help you enhance interview skills and learn how to reach market segments."

    Career Services begins working with UA students early in their academic careers to connect them with valuable internship, research, leadership and employment opportunities.

    In the 2012-13 academic year, the number of student internships posted online on the Career Services' Wildcat Joblink website jumped 90 percent from last year, with 2,100 opportunities targeting UA students. Meanwhile, full-time positions posted for students grew 20 percent to 3,100. In addition, University career fairs brought in 620 companies, while more than 210 employers engaged in active employee recruiting on campus, interviewing more than 3,600 students. 

    McGarry notes that although the job market is improving for college graduates, it remains competitive.

    Recent surveys by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, or NACE, suggest that employers plan to hire just 2.1 percent more new college grads from the class of 2013 than they hired from the class of 2012, with the top five hiring industries being educational services; professional, scientific and technical services; health care; federal, state and local government; and finance and insurance. The most in-demand graduates, nationally, include those with engineering, computer science, accounting and business degrees.

    As students prepare to enter this competitive workforce, there are a few things they should remember in addition to tapping into Career Services resources, McGarry says.

    No. 1: Be patient.

    "Sometimes, depending on a student's experience, they have to start in a position they might not have envisioned was what they were going to do doing when they graduated, and then they grow from there," McGarry said. "But anytime I've seen graduates move in, they quickly move up because they're valued by employers, and that often propels them into leadership roles quickly."

    Employer satisfaction surveys of companies that recruit from the UA show overwhelming satisfaction with UA graduates hired, especially with regard to their teamwork, communication and problem solving skills, McGarry said.

    Also important for job seekers is face-to-face networking. McGarry says students should stay in touch with contacts like professors and UA staff as well as seek out new connections through professional networks related to their field or through UA Alumni Association chapters in their part of the country.

    In today's digitally connected world, online networking also is essential. McGarry advises job seekers create a LinkedIn profile to highlight their professional accomplishments and connect with others in their field online. They also should be mindful of how they represent themselves on social networking platforms, such as Facebook, considering how information they share publicly might be viewed by a potential employer.

    Of course, a good resume remains forever important. McGarry reminds students their resume should not just describe their past experiences, but rather highlight their specific accomplishments and how what they did had a qualitative or quantitative impact.

    When it comes to actually interviewing for a job, candidates should be able to reflect in meaningful ways on their prior experiences and come prepared with a solid understanding of the company interviewing them. McGarry also advises following up with potential employers with "gentle persistence."

    Finally, for graduates who have already landed a job, it's important to engage fully in the workplace culture while maintaining a long-term view, McGarry advises.

    "Really tune into the culture and really listen to those that want to mentor you," she said. "Start with a mindset that you're really going to be committed to the environment and take a lot in. You also want to keep a long-term view, always – looking out further and having a long-term perspective in mind, not just what's happening right now."

     

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  10. article What's Up UA? - UA Geneticists Find Causes for Severe Childhood Epilepsies

    Wednesday, May 8, 2013 5:09 pm

    Researchers at the University of Arizona have successfully determined the genetic mutations causing severe epilepsies in seven out of 10 children for whom the cause of the disorder could not be determined clinically or by conventional genetic testing.

    Instead of sequencing each gene one at a time, the team used a technique called whole-exome sequencing: Rather than combing through all of the roughly 3 billion base pairs of an individual's entire genome, whole-exome-sequencing deciphers only actual genes, and nearly all of them simultaneously.

    "My initial hope was that we would find something in one out of the 10 children in our study. But a 70 percent success rate is beyond anyone's imagination," said study leader Michael Hammer, who is a research scientist in the UA's Arizona Research Labs Division of Biotechnology and a member of the UA BIO5 Institute.
     
    For Hammer, the research hit very close to home. Just last year, his lab tracked down the mutation that had caused the severe – and ultimately fatal – epilepsy in his teenage daughter. 
     
    "I figured, if we could do this for one child, we could do it for others." Hammer explained. "These are children who have had every test imaginable and tried every possible drug combination, and nobody has figured out where their seizures come from and how to stop them."
     
    The children who participated in the study, published online in the journal Epilepsia, all suffered from severe seizure disorders, and most of them started having seizures within the first year or two after birth.
     
    Unlike individuals afflicted with epilepsy later in life, many of whom can live normal lives with the right medical oversight and medications, early-onset epilepsy can be devastating. Children often develop other severe complications such as intellectual disability, autism and loss of muscle tone or coordination. Early death is not uncommon.
     
    "Because their seizures are not well controlled, and that firestorm of electrical activity in the brain is bad for brain development, the damage can be extensive," added Linda Restifo, a professor in the UAdepartment of neurology and a BIO5 member who co-authored the study. "The earlier the seizures start and the more severe and frequent they are, the more likely they are to leave the child with permanent developmental disability."
     
    "The sooner we can catch problems in children and understand what is causing them, the better the chance we have to try and correct them," Hammer added. 
     
    To identify changes in the DNA that are the most likely cause of the disorders, the team focused on a class of mutations called de novo mutations: "typos" in the DNA sequence that are present only in the child. In order to find such mutations, the study included both parents and their child.
     
    Overall, the team found 15 mutations in nine children, seven of which are known or likely to cause epilepsy. No mutations could be found in one of the children. 
     
    "In four of the patients. we found mutations that were already known to be associated with epilepsy," said Krishna Veeramah, a postdoctoral fellow in Hammer's group and the study's first author. "However, three patients had mutations in genes that were not previously associated with epilepsy in humans but presented plausible explanations for the disorder."
     
    "The fact that we found three genes – in a study involving only 10 subjects – that had never been implicated in epilepsy before suggests that many more genetic defects related to developmental brain disorders remain to be discovered," Veeramah said.  
     
    One of the participants in the study was Ashley Wilhelm, a 14-year-old girl from Phoenix, Ariz., whose seizures started when she was only 5 months old. Her first seizures appeared to be triggered by fever, leading doctors to believe they were just that – a side effect of the fever. 
     
    "But she soon began to have more and more seizures, and they would last half an hour or longer," said her mother, Ann. "We had all sorts of tests done, but the doctors kept saying her brain was normal, and that they didn't see any reason she'd have those seizures."
     
    Ashley, whose development has severely suffered as a consequence of the repeated seizures, was enrolled in the study through her neurologist, Dinesh Talwar, who co-authored the paper.
     
    Even though her treatment is unlikely to change with the new information, the family said the results brought "more relief than we can explain."
     
    "Since insurance wouldn't pay for the testing, and we couldn't afford it on our own, we were very grateful we were able to participate in the study," said Jeff Wilhelm, Ashley's father. "If such a test could be done much earlier, it would ease the pain for everyone involved. What if our son had decided not to consider having children of his own out of concern they might have the disorder?"
     
    "The results from this study have at last given us a breakthrough," said the mother of another participating teenager. "We had pursued every possible avenue to understand what might be responsible for his epilepsy – magnetic resonance imaging, CT scans, searches for gross chromosome abnormalities or markers associated with epilepsy – with no success."
     
    "Although the discovery doesn't yet give us a treatment, it gives us hope for finding one," she said. "As more research is done on this mutation, drugs to control our son's seizures will be identified. If more children with epilepsy can be studied and families with children with similar mutations can organize and share resources, there will be more progress."
     
    Hammer said the approach is applicable to other conditions in which conventional genetic testing has failed to reveal the cause.
     
    "Our work bridges research and clinical practice," he added. "We can sequence all the genes in your genome in a matter of days and report it to the patient's family and the physician. That may make a difference in the treatment and management of the disorder in question."
     
    Centers with the capabilities to do this kind of analysis are few and far between.
     
    "Other centers that do this kind of work will sequence your genome and tell you where and what the mutation is in the DNA sequence, but it's not that simple," Hammer said. "In most cases, we find a mutation in a gene not previously known to cause disease, so we need to perform a follow-up study to find out what that mutation actually does."
     
    To perform these follow-up studies, the UA team has established collaborations with leading scientists at the UA and at other institutions.
     
    "Right now, the benefit to families is primarily to get answers," said Restifo. "The long-term goal is to collect this kind of information from more children, which will hopefully lead to new research into medications that improve brain development and function."
     
    Hammer added: "In the meantime, a molecular diagnosis provides immediate relief to the unnecessary guilt parents might feel for their role in causing their child's suffering. They want answers, not endless doctors visits and tests with negative results, or to have their hopes raised and dashed over and over."
     
    Encouraged by the success of their approach so far, Hammer and his colleagues already have bigger plans. 
     
    "We hope to involve other clinical areas such as cardiology, immunology, gastroenterology – anything that we can apply molecular diagnostics or clinical genomics to at the UA, we want to explore. We want to make the University the core for clinical diagnostics using new sequencing technologies for at least the entire Southwest."
     
    UA pediatric geneticist Robert Erickson, another co-author and member of the UA Steele Children's Research Center added, "these efforts will be very important in the diagnosis of newborns with unusual birth defects."
     

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  11. article The Guide -- Week of May 8

    Wednesday, May 8, 2013 4:00 am

    Century Theatres

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  12. article What's Up UA? - UA Research Suggests Link Between Elevated Blood Sugar, Alzheimer's Risk

    Sunday, May 5, 2013 8:39 pm

    A new University of Arizona study, published in the journal Neurology, suggests a possible link between elevated blood sugar levels and risk for developing Alzheimer's disease.

    About 5 percent of men and women, ages 65 to 74, have Alzheimer's disease, and it is estimated that nearly half of those age 85 and older may have the disease, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among the known factors that contribute to the disease are age and genetics. Scientists also think that high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes may increase risk.

    Although the link between diabetes and Alzheimer's has been studied, UA researchers wondered if elevated blood sugar levels in non-diabetic individuals also might indicate a higher risk for developing Alzheimer's disease.

    "There have been studies that have linked diabetes to Alzheimer's disease as a risk factor," said Alfred Kaszniak, UA professor of psychology and a co-author on the study. "What was not known when we began this work is whether that risk was only at levels of blood sugar that qualify for diagnoses of diabetes, or in the borderline or pre-diabetic range, or would we also see a relationship across the so-called normal range of blood glucose?"

    The researchers used fluorodeoxyglucose (18F) positron electron tomography, or FDG PET, a medical imaging technique that produces three-dimensional images of metabolic activity in the brain. Fasting serum glucose levels – blood sugar levels following several hours of not eating – are routinely acquired as part of the FDG PET protocol.

    "When compared to those without the disease, Alzheimer's disease patients demonstrate a pattern of reduced brain metabolism in particular brain regions," explained Christine Burns, lead author on the study and a UA pre-doctoral student in psychology. "What we show is an association between elevated fasting serum glucose levels and a similar pattern of reduced metabolism in these same AD-related brain regions in cognitively healthy adults."

    The researchers studied data on 124 cognitively normal, non-diabetic adults with a family history of Alzheimer's disease. The individuals, who ranged in age from 47 to 68, were among participants in a larger study, led by Dr. Eric Reiman, executive director of the Banner Alzheimer's Institute in Phoenix, looking at a variety of Alzheimer's risk factors, including genetic risk. 

    The link between high blood sugar and reduced brain metabolism existed regardless of whether individuals carried the Apolipoprotein E4 gene variant, an established risk factor for the development of Alzheimer's disease.   

    In addition to suggesting a link between elevated blood sugar levels and Alzheimer's risk in non-diabetic individuals, the study also shows promise for the use of brain imaging techniques like PET in identifying Alzheimer's risk and developing early preventative interventions, researchers say.

    "Right now, if you want to develop a drug or evaluate some other kind of a preventive measure for Alzheimer's disease, the labor and expense is prohibitive," Kaszniak said. "If you recruit people who may be at some risk, but are 20 years away from developing signs of the illness, what drug company or governmental agency is going to fund research that follows people for 20 years to see whether something is effective in prevention?

    "However, if you have a biologic marker, it suggests what areas you should really focus on in those very expensive longitudinal studies," he said.

    Burns said she hopes the findings will inform ongoing work designed to help develop early Alzheimer's interventions.

    "A lot of valuable research is focused on treatment and slowing decline in Alzheimer's patients," she said. "I'm interested in complementing this work with interventions that can be implemented earlier on, perhaps at middle age."

     

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  13. article What's Up UA? - UA Commencement Returns to Arizona Stadium May 10

    Thursday, May 2, 2013 10:30 am

    For the first time in more than 40 years, graduating University of Arizona Wildcats will gather at Arizona Stadium to celebrate their transition from hardworking students to proud alumni.

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  14. article What's Up UA? - UA Researchers Solve Mystery of Lincoln's Funeral Train

    Saturday, April 27, 2013 6:23 pm

    A trove of information exists about Abraham Lincoln's funeral, which drew millions of mourners during a two-week railway procession across the Northern states.

    But until now, the precise color of the president's railcar had been lost to history.

    With the 2015 sesquicentennial of Lincoln's death approaching, interest in it is rising, and with new tools, researchers at the University of Arizona have turned their attention to one of the last remaining mysteries about what was "perhaps the largest traditional funeral in American history," says Wayne Wesolowski.

    Wesolowski, a chemist and model train maker, was director of the Lincoln Train Project at Benedictine University near Chicago for 10 years. In 1995, he completed a years-long project of building a scale model of Lincoln's car, the locomotive and hearse and horses, all together measuring nearly 15 feet in length.

    After 30 years as a chemistry professor at Benedictine, Wesolowski retired to Tucson, and continues to teach as a chemistry lecturer at the UA.

    A Chicago group known as the Lincoln Funeral Car Project approached Wesolowski to consult on their efforts to build a full-size version of Lincoln's funeral car, intending to trace as closely as possible the funeral route for the 150th anniversary. An obvious question: what color to paint the new replica?

    However, no color photographs, no color lithographs and no contemporary color paintings exist of Lincoln's private car, named "The United States." Newspaper accounts from the time describe the color as both "rich chocolate brown" and "claret red." But "chocolate" in 1865 was strictly a drink, very different from the milk chocolate we know today, so the two descriptions are compatible.

    The car burned in a fire in 1911, having been sold at auction to Union Pacific after the funeral and passing through several private hands afterward. Just one artifact of exterior wood survived, and after years of searching, Wesolowski acquired a pencil sized piece of trim.

    Using three separate labs at the UA – inchemistry/biochemistry (Brook Beam, Keck Imaging Center), art (Karen Zimmermann, Jack Sinclair Letterpress Studio) and the Arizona State Museum – Wesolowski set about investigating for the true color.

    And with the help of Nancy Odegaard, conservator and head of the preservation division, comparing layers of microscopic paint chips from the original car to national color standards, Wesolowski at last found the true original color, which he describes as a dark maroon, darker, but not too far off of what he'd painted his model.

    The effort at historical exactness reflects on how deeply the country mourned Lincoln's death. In early 1865, the United States Military Railroad delivered Lincoln a private railroad car for presidential use. But Lincoln never used the car alive. His presidential funeral procession left Washington on April 21, 1865, closely retracing the route Lincoln traveled as president-elect in 1861, bypassing cities with a large number of Southern sympathizers.

    "It was a procession of mourning and without TV or radio, the only way to participate was to leave the farm, close the store and come trackside," Wesolowski says. "Just being there was so important. It was a colossal event."

    Millions of Americans – an estimated one-third of the Northern population – came in person to see the funeral. In New York and Chicago, the crowds topped a half-million. In the countryside, people lined the tracks just to glimpse the train as it passed, similar to the Robert Kennedy funeral train.

    "It was a political event. It was a social event. It was a catharsis. The man who said in victory, 'Malice toward none,' was dead," Wesolowski says. "There is now a chance to re-create a little of that history."

     

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  15. article What's Up UA? - UA Spin-Off to Test Cancer-Preventing Drug Combination

    Tuesday, April 23, 2013 9:38 am

    Cancer Prevention Pharmaceuticals, Inc., or CPP, has helped launch a phase-III clinical trial to test the efficacy of a combination drug that has shown promise of preventing colon cancer. CPP was founded in 2008 to apply decades' worth of systematic, basic research led by University of Arizona professor emeritus Eugene Gerner and former UA researcher Frank Meyskens to improve clinical practice. 

    During the trial, which is funded by the National Cancer Institute, 1,340 colon cancer survivors will receive daily treatment for three years to prevent the occurrence of colorectal cancer or high-risk polyps and compare the effects to a placebo group. 
     
    "Our long-term vision is to change the status quo from treating and managing cancer to intervening before cancer manifests and prevent it altogether," said Jeffrey Jacob, founding CEO of Cancer Prevention Pharmaceuticals. "The idea is just like in the approach to heart disease: Instead of waiting for heart attack or stroke to happen, we give patients cholesterol-lowering or blood pressure-lowering medicine to prevent those events from happening in the first place."
     
    In addition to colorectal cancer, the same treatment approach has shown promise in preventing prostate, skin and possibly other cancers as well. Colorectal cancer affects about 1 million people in the U.S., Jacob said. 
     
    "Our two-drug-combination targets different pathways that are important in cancer development," explained CPP co-founder Eugene Gerner, who retired from the department of cellular and molecular medicine in the UA College of Medicine last year. "Over years of research using cell cultures and mouse models in the lab, we have been able to systematically elucidate the molecular pathways underlying cancer formation and how to target them with those drugs."
     
    This work then was successfully translated to the clinic with the help of the NCI and various research partners.  
     
    One, Sulindac, belongs to of the class of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, with aspirin being a notable member. Sulindac targets the inflammatory pathway. The other, called Eflornithine, homes in on the  polyamine pathway. Driven by growth factors, this pathway is essential in stimulating growth and development in most living organisms.
     
    In his research, which has been continuously funded by the NCI since 1975, Gerner collaborated closely with Meyskens, who was a professor of medicine at the UA College of Medicine before he moved to University of California, Irvine. Both were members of the Arizona Cancer Center. Even as professor emeritus, Gerner still does research in his lab at the UA and is an active member of the UA's BIO5 Institute. 
     
    Gerner said his group focused on colon cancer in the 1980s because it was the one frequent type of human cancer for which a substantial amount of genetic information became available, especially with the Human Genome Project.
     
    "Our approach strictly focuses on the biological mechanisms and the genetics," Gerner said. "I came to the UA in 1974 and initially worked in cancer therapeutics. By the mid 1980s, I was discouraged by the lack of progress that was being made at the time. So we set out to understand the underlying processes that lead to cancer, such as the roles of various growth factors and cancer-promoting genes. 
     
    According to Jacob, the company's current focus is on intervening with patients facing elevated risk, including cancer survivors or individuals with a genetic predisposition, with the ultimate goal of expand the same approach to other forms of cancer and the general at-risk population. 
     
    Gerner said that many experts estimate at least 70 percent of colorectal cancer are associated with risk factors such as weight gain and a diet high in fat and beef but low in fiber. 
     
    "However, there are a substantial number of individuals who eat perfect diets and exercise, but still face a risk from mutations that arise spontaneously or they inherited," he said. 
     
    "Our drugs are targeting growth and inflammatory pathways leading to the synthesis of polyamines, but diets contain polyamines also. Our company is looking at ways to manage overall risk, including diet, genetic factors and exercise."
     
    In other clinical trials, CPP is also testing the therapy on people with known genetic predispositions to colorectal cancer such as patients with Familial Adenomatous Polyposis, a genetic disease that comes with a nearly 100 percent risk of developing colon cancer before age 40. 
     
    "The only option for most people with FAP is to remove the entire colon in their late teens or early twenties," Gerner said, "and they still face a lifetime of surgeries to control the condition."
     
    Neuroblastoma, a pediatric cancer and the second leading killer of children with cancer, according to Jacob, is another avenue the company is pursuing in a clinical trial. 
     
    In addition to drug therapies, CPP is considering partnerships with food companies to develop certain types of "functional foods" or "medical foods" that would exploit the same science to reduce cancer risk in certain demographics. The company is also developing new diagnostic approaches to identify people who are at higher risk for cancer who could ultimately benefit from specific therapies or medical foods. 
     
    "Part of our ability to reduce risk is having means to assess that risk and evaluate the effectiveness of drugs we are using," Gerner added. "For example, some drugs work better in some people than in others. The goal is to develop diagnostics that tell us about an individual's susceptibility."
     
    David Alberts, director of the UA's Arizona Cancer Center, said: "Gene Gerner and Frank Meyskens, both absolutely brilliant scientists, have transformed exciting laboratory research findings into medications that have the great potential of saving hundreds of thousands of lives. We are very proud that the University of Arizona Cancer Center served as the incubator for this powerful, new chemoprevention technology for colorectal cancer and treatment for recurrent neuroblastoma."
     

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  16. article What's Up UA? - An Expanding Vision for Arts Education, Outreach

    Saturday, April 20, 2013 11:32 am

    The first art exhibition at the University of Arizona opened nearly 90 years ago, a time when fine art had a minimal public presence in the southwestern United States.

    It took intentional, forward-thinking plans, along with strong and sustained support from donors and friends of the UA, to establish a vibrant professional school and museum with an internationally regarded collection. 

    Behind the decades-old push is the UA School of Artand the UA Museum of Art & Archive of Visual Arts, or UAMA, whose students, faculty and staff generate national and international attention for their research, productions and outreach.

    Today's effort is to harness the expertise and resources of the UAMA and the School of Art, in partnership with other UA arts divisions and external partners, to expand the UA's legacy in the arts, said Dennis Jones, who directs the School of Art and the UAMA. 

    "The UAMA has always been that trigger, that spark for making things happen in the arts here," Jones said. "The museum was an outgrowth of the School of Art, and I envision the UAMA and the School of Art working together in ways we have never seen before."

    Complementing and elevating the UA's arts enterprise are the Center for Creative Photography, or CCP, and the Arizona State Museum, seminal units not only for the UA, but for arts communities elsewhere.

    Under the tutelage of Jones, the long-range vision for the School of Art and the UAMA is more cohesion and visibility toward the goal of bolstering arts research at the UA while expanding community-based outreach and efforts to elevate the reputation of the region's visual arts core.

    In fact, C. Leonard Pfeiffer, the UAMA's first major donor, once said: "I wish that all men with the love of art in their souls would take these words to heart: Help build collections in every corner of our land."

    Uniting a Professional School, Museum

    Since Katherine Kitt, the UA faculty member who founded what would become the UA School of Art, organized the first art exhibition at the UA in 1924, the UAMA and the school have grown to become two crucial facilities for research, training, preservation and engagement in the arts in the southwestern U.S.

    The ever-growing synergy between the UA arts units has netted a number of important milestones and notoriety for the UA, with a public impact that has been extensive, Jones said.

    The UAMA played a key role in the founding of the CCP after hosting an exhibition of Ansel Adam's work in 1974. Today, the CCP is an internationally regarded institution, revered for being the largest organization devoted to collecting and preserving modern North American photography.

    The UAMA also gained notoriety for its permanent collection, with all pieces having been gifted to the UA or purchased with donor funds, said Carol Petrozzello, the UAMA's marketing specialist.

    "The personal collections of our donors have made a great difference," Petrozzello said.

    "There have been so many people who have had an affinity and love for Tucson and the UA," she said, adding that such individuals have long donated major works and helped the UAMA acquire additional pieces over the decades.

    Among the prized artwork in UAMA's holdings are works by Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keeffe, Mark Rothko, Edward Hopper, Jacques Lipchitz, Robert McCall and dozens of panels in the Retablo Room, works that comprise the 15th century altarpiece, a gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

    With 60 paintings and four sculptures, the Samuel H. Kress Collection is one of the University's prized collections. The UA maintains the 15th century panels from Spain, making the UAMA one among the regional and academic art museums in the U.S. responsible for preserving the Spanish Renaissance paintings while educating the public about the history of the collection.

    Jones prides that both units retain strong outreach initiatives, both driven by the understanding and outward mission to regularly interact with off-campus partners, including schools, businesses, nonprofit organizations, community centers and senior centers, among others.

    Of note, student illustrators and designers persistently work with business and industry, developing marketing materials, logos, community art projects and other materials.

    Studio A, a nonprofit design studio run by UA students, is a perfect example of such work. Now self-sufficient, the studio provides fee-based design and illustration work to offices, organizations and companies. The more recently launched Digital Print Studio is on track to also become self-sufficient, Jones said.

    Meanwhile, members of the art faculty have contributed to new publications and exhibited and taught around the world; some also have earned awards and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, National Art Education Association and Fulbright Scholar Program.

    "Art really stands out at the University and, really, the cause behind it is much bigger," Jones said. "It has always about trying to raise the bar."

    Great Integration, Broader Impact

    Among the new plans is the future integration into UAMA of Wildcat Art, a K-12 arts education program that involves youth in collaborative learning toward creating artwork, Jones said.

    Jones said creating more cohesion between UAMA and Wildcat Art, which is run out of the UA Division of Art and Visual Culture Education, will result in an expansion of regional arts education.

    Currently, the museum has an open survey aimed at educators to improve future outreach efforts. 

    Also, the museum's staff recently collaborated with School of Art faculty members and students on a Renaissance, for which students investigated works in the UAMA collection. Their writings will become part of the museum's collection, contributing to the expanding resources available to members of the public. 

    That collaboration speaks directly to the work of Olivia Miller, the UAMA's curator of education, who is working toward becoming a faculty liaison. 

    Serving as the intermediary between the UAMA and the School of Art, as well as other academic units on campus, Miller's objective is driven by a nationwide movement. Increasingly, campus-run museums have appointed faculty liaisons to better integrate repositories of art with the very individuals creating new knowledge and new works of art.

    Emphasizing the need for an expansion of art and a better integration of units and disciplines, Miller said the arts stand as an important conduit for public discourse, offering space in which challenging conversations can be safely couched.

    "Naturally, museum labels and exhibition themes are designed to create a pathway for thought, but even within this focus, the public can still think critically," said Miller, the UAMA's curator of education.

    "It's important for us to consider that the public is diverse and constantly evolving and as such, we have to think outside the box and realize there are a myriad of ways to interpret art," she also said. "What's especially important, particularly for university art museums, is to engage faculty and students from all departments in addition to the public at large."

     

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  17. article What's Up UA? - Better Batteries From Waste Sulfur

    Thursday, April 18, 2013 10:13 am

    A new chemical process can transform waste sulfur into a lightweight plastic that may improve batteries for electric cars, reports a University of Arizona-led team. The new plastic has other potential uses, including optical uses.

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  18. article What's Up UA? - Study Explores Arizona Parents' Struggle with Child-Care Options

    Sunday, April 14, 2013 9:37 am

    Arizona parents tend to rely on a "patchwork" of child-care arrangements while many are looking for new options at any given time. In addition, many parents struggle to pay for child care – and many can't afford to pay for it at all, according to the Arizona Child Care Demand Study.

    A statewide team of researchers from the University of Arizona, Northern Arizona University and Arizona State University released a set of reports with results from more than 1,400 interviews with parents of children from birth to 6 years old from across Arizona to determine what they consider important factors when they choose child care for their children, how they find out about child-care options, and what is their demand for child care.

    The Arizona Child Care Demand Study is the most comprehensive report on child-care demand that has been conducted in Arizona.

    The lead researcher, Douglas Taren, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of public health at the UA Mel & Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, said the findings "are a valuable resource for child-care providers to determine what parents want when deciding who and where their children receive care."

    The study was supported with funds from Arizona First Things First and several FTF Regional Partnership Councils. The study was conducted across Arizona and included parents living in areas served by 17 regional councils who were from urban and rural areas, border counties and on Tribal Nations. The 11-volume report provides statewide information on child care and 10 separate reports for targeted areas within the state.

    Results indicated that when parents search for child care, their top priority is having a safe, secure and homelike setting, with a caring and experienced provider. As children get older, there is a greater emphasis on an educational curriculum, group experiences that help get children ready for kindergarten and a well-trained child-care provider.

    According to Beth Blue Swadener, a co-director from ASU, "The results showed that the majority of families use a patchwork of child care, often including two or more different care arrangements, with the exception being those who use fulltime center-based care."

    Findings showed that most families use more than one source of child care because of the diversity of family conditions such as having both parents working either full or part time. A majority of parents interviewed in several regions of the state preferred friends, family and neighbor care, particularly for younger children. Grandmothers were the most frequent family member to provide care, and a number of families used unregulated care. Parents most frequently used friends and family to identify possible child-care providers, followed by using popular media including the Internet.

    Most parents reported making sacrifices to afford child care, which results in having cost influencing their decisions about child care. The families who appear to be most impacted by the cost of care are single or separated and divorced parents. In many cases, families determined that it was more cost effective to have one parent stay home, at least part-time. According to Mary Jane McLellan from NAU, "Results indicate that families often stay home and out of the workforce because the cost of care makes work impractical."

    Parents also voiced their desire for more affordable child-care options in their local communities. Only a small percentage of parents reported receiving scholarships or DES-subsidized child care. Some families reported no cost for care, including those participating in Head Start, a federal program serving low income families.

    Although about 50 percent of parents with infants reported a demand for child care, this was the age group that had the least demand compared to older children. The greatest demand was for parents with children 3 to 4 years of age, in which 70 percent were seeking child care for their children.

    One of the major findings of the study was that enhanced public information is needed for parents to find child care and learn about some of the indicators of quality care, including greater promotion of free services for parents looking for care. Also, many parents of children with special needs were not aware of their child's right to diagnostic or early intervention services, particularly for children younger than age 3.

    Overall, the Arizona Child Care Study found that there is a need to increase outreach and public awareness of services available for families who have concerns about their child's development or chronic health issues.

    "This study shows that what parents want in child care is consistent across the state with the most important issues of safety and affordability being the primary reason children do not participate in early childhood education programs," said Taren. "I believe this indicates that we need to provide more financial support for parents so their children can access early childhood education programs. This will have an immediate return on investment by allowing parents to participate more in the workforce and long term returns by having children become more ready to enter school."

     

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  19. article What's Up UA? - The Strikingly Similar Brains of Flies and Men

    Friday, April 12, 2013 10:58 am

    A new study by scientists at the University of Arizona and King's College London published in Science reveals the deep similarities in how the brain regulates behavior in arthropods (such as flies and crabs) and vertebrates (such as fish, mice and humans).

    The findings shed new light on the evolution of the brain and behavior, and may aid understanding of disease mechanisms underlying mental health problems.

    Based on their own findings and available literature,Nicholas Strausfeld, a Regents’ Professor of Neuroscience at the UA and Frank Hirth of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London compared the development and function of the central brain regions – the "central complex" in arthropods and the "basal ganglia" in vertebrates.

    Research suggests that both brain structures derive from embryonic cells at the base of the developing forebrain and that, despite the major differences between species, their respective constitutions and specifications derive from similar genetic programs.

    "When you compare the two structures, you find that they are very similar in terms of how they're organized," said Strausfeld. "Their development is orchestrated by a whole suite of genes that are homologous between flies and mice, and the behavioral deficits resulting from disturbances in the two systems are remarkably similar as well."

    The authors describe that nerve cells in the central complex and the basal ganglia become inter-connected and communicate with each other in similar ways, facilitating the regulation of adaptive behaviors. In other words, the response of a fly or a mouse to internal stimuli such as hunger or sleep, and external stimuli such as light/dark or temperature, are regulated by similar neural mechanisms.

    "Flies, crabs, mice, humans: all experience hunger, need sleep and have a preference for a comfortable temperature, so we speculated there must be a similar mechanism regulating these behaviors," said Hirth. "We were amazed to find just how deep the similarities go, despite the differences in size and appearance of these species and their brains."

    In humans, dysfunction of the basal ganglia can cause severe mental health problems ranging from autism, schizophrenia and psychosis, to neurodegeneration – as seen in Parkinson's disease, motor neuron disease and dementia – as well as sleep disturbances, attention deficits and memory impairment. When parts of the central complex are affected in fruit flies, they display similar impairments.

    "We know of many mutations in the central complex of insects that give rise to disruption in behavior," Strausfeld explained. "In one such mutation, the insects can walk in straight lines, but when they turn, they fall over their own feet. Taken together, these manifestations are very reminiscent of what happens in Parkinson's."

    The findings suggest that arthropod and vertebrate brain circuitries derive from a common ancestor already possessing a complex neural structure mediating the selection and maintenance of behavioral actions.

    Hirth added: "The deep similarities we see between how our brains and those of insects regulate behavior suggest a common evolutionary origin. It means that prototype brain circuits, essential for behavioral choice, originated very early and have been maintained across animal species throughout evolutionary time. As surprising as it may seem, from insects' dysfunctional brains, we can learn a great deal about how human brain disorders come about."

    The findings add to an emerging picture of a common ancestor of invertebrates and vertebrates of deep in evolutionary time whose brain may have already been much more complex than many scientists are ready to admit. Other brain structures have revealed their common origins in previous research, such as the hippocampus in vertebrates and the mushroom bodies in arthropods.

    Unfortunately, no fossil remains of such a creature have been found.

    Strausfeld said it is likely that those earliest common ancestors were so small or decayed so rapidly that they left nothing of their body for fossilization.

    There are, however other clues: tracks left behind by unknown creatures crawling across the seafloor hundreds of millions of years ago. These "trace fossils" reveal purposeful changes in direction, with some even leading back to where the animal had gone before.

    "If you compare these tracks to the tracks left behind by a foraging fly larva on an agar plate or the tunnels made by a leaf-mining insect, they're very similar," Strausfeld said. "They all suggest that the animal chose to perform various different actions; action selection is precisely what the central complex and the basal ganglia do."

    To Strausfeld, the trace fossils support the idea of brains already complex enough to allow for action selection and a shared ancestry of neural structures between invertebrates and vertebrates.

    "If these basic circuits appeared early and provided the organism with a very efficient way of forging and decision-making about where it was going to do that, then these circuits should have been evolutionarily stable. Nature doesn't fix what isn't broken."

    "It has often been suggested that the common ancestor of us and flies should have been very simple, but it may not have been so simple," he pointed out. "Even those earliest brain structures had millions of years to evolve – enough time to become quite elaborate."

    Strausfeld added: "Our study then begs the question whether other parts of an insect's brain – parts that we suspect bring together information from many higher centers – may be functioning in ways comparable to integrative properties ascribed to the frontal cortex or parietal cortex of the mammalian brain."

    The study was funded by the UK Medical Research Council, the Royal Society, Parkinson's UK, the Motor Neuron Disease Association, Alzheimer's Research UK, Foundation Thierry Latran, the Air Force Research Laboratories and the UA Center for Insect Science.

     

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  20. article What's Up UA? - Scientists Develop Computer Games to Keep Miners Safe

    Wednesday, April 10, 2013 10:50 am

    After a series of miscommunications at a surface mine in Ray, Ariz. in 2012, a haul truck, several stories tall and used for transporting enormous loads of ore, rolled over a regular-sized vehicle that was invisible to the driver of the haul truck, killing the driver of the vehicle and injuring another of its two occupants.

    "It's usually a number of circumstances that compound together that ultimately lead to a tragic situation," said Leonard Brown, a doctoral candidate in thedepartment of computer science at the University of Arizona. In that case, it is believed that several miscommunications and small errors in safe mining practice led to the fatality.

    Fatal accidents happen each year in mines across Arizona, despite ongoing efforts to curb their prevalence by carefully analyzing each accident to find its root cause and instituting new practices to prevent future accidents.

    Now, UA scientists are stepping in. Funded by grants from the Mine Safety and Health Administration, or MSHA, and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, or NIOSH, and support fromScience Foundation Arizona, UA researchers are developing interactive computer games to better train miners to avoid fatal accidents and potential emergencies while working in mines.

    The effort is headed up by principal investigator Mary Poulton, a professor and head of the UA's department of mining and geological engineering; John R. M. "Ros" Hill, director of the San Xavier Mining Laboratory and a professor of practice in the department of mining and geological engineering; and Brown.

    "Our goal is to eliminate accidents and fatalities in mining," said Hill. "We're approaching it from a training standpoint of how can we best develop a tool that miners could use that would teach them to make appropriate decisions or see where wrong decisions have been made."

    After a fatal mining accident, MSHA investigates the events leading up to the incident and produces a report, known as a fatalgram. Each year, these accident reports are used to help train miners to know what types of accidents can occur in a mine and what to do to avoid or avert them.

    The standard training approach has been a paper packet of information to read through, with summary questions at the end. Hill and Brown are taking a different approach: By allowing miners to play the role of characters in each situation, they can make decisions leading to alternate outcomes and can replay the games as many times as necessary to understand the potential consequences of each decision they make.

    "These interactive fatalgrams enhance the learning experience by pairing visual information with events leading to fatal incidents, to help miners understand the accidents and the need for relevant safety practices," Brown said of the computer games he and Hill are developing. Brown, who worked in the gaming industry for two years before beginning graduate school at the UA, is intimately familiar with computer game technology. 

    Brown has created computer games based on the MSHA fatalgram reports, replicating the incidences as playable scenarios in which miners can take the role of individuals involved at the scene and can make decisions that influence the outcome and may lead to avoiding the accident.

    "One of the objectives of our simulations is to get users more involved in the learning process, to make them think critically in the context of the situation," said Brown. 

    With the interactive fatalgram simulations, "you can step into the game and replay it for different outcomes," Hill said, thus teaching miners to recognize situations that could lead to harmful outcomes.

    The second goal of the computer game simulations is to train miners how to respond to a mine emergency, for example a fire in an underground mine.

    NIOSH has prepared a scenario, known as Harry's Hard Choices, which trains miners to deal with the types of difficult decisions they may face in the stressful and frightening event of a fire in an underground mine.

    An important part of the scenario is knowing when to try to get out of the mine and when to go to a mine refuge chamber, which is protected and supplied with enough oxygen for 48 to 72 hours, depending on the number of people inside.

    Brown built the scenario into an interactive computer game in which the player takes on the role of Harry, a section foreman in an underground coal mine. With the meager information about a fire in the mine, and carbon monoxide alarms going off, Harry is told to evacuate his crew. He must first decide how best to do that: don breathing apparatuses and attempt to walk the long way out, jump in a truck and drive out, or go to a shelter and wait for help to arrive.

    Each decision is not as easy as it may seem.

    "This is kind of like a 'fog of war' situation where you don't have a complete picture of what's going on, there are a lot of unknowns, there are a lot of gray areas that factor into the decision making, just like in a real life situation," Brown said.

    "For example, if you don't check your gas meter for methane buildup, there's a chance that when you get in the truck, it explodes and everybody dies," Brown said. "There's a big graphic simulation of wheels rolling off in flames and so forth. There's a little bit of campiness to it, but hopefully it's memorable, something to reinforce the learning objectives of this scenario."

    Brown has added variations to the theme, such as the truck breaking down on the way out, or team members suffering injury or dying due to fatigue or bad air: "We can mix up the way that the story unfolds to make it dynamic, so every time you play the game you get a little bit different set of circumstances."

    In the role of Harry, the player also is responsible for the morale of the crew. As the situation gets worse, the crew's stress levels and fatigue intensifies, and also their distrust in their leader. The player must make decisions under pressure to ensure that his crew makes it through the scenario safely.

    "When you create this software you have to create every little piece that goes into it," said Hill. "The facial expressions, the subtle humor that might be used in the mines or the types of people you might find in the mine. We're trying to capture a lot of that culture into the software."

    Brown's team of developers, including Michael Peltier, an independent contractor in Tucson and Arthur Griffith of Desert Owl Games, has engineered the lip-syncing of the game characters to match up with both English and Spanish dialog, so that the game is bilingual. In addition, the games help to reinforce workplace literacy, using mining lingo and jargon to enhance the technical realism of the mining scenario.

    Also, "these games are going to be usable on several different platforms from desktop PCs up to stereoscopic display systems that can enable an immersive virtual reality," Brown said. "And you’ll be able to use a number of different interaction devices and techniques, from keyboard and mouse and gamepads to natural user interaction with hands-free gestures."

    By giving miners a tool that allows them to think about the types of decisions they would need to make to avoid an accident or avert an emergency situation, Hill and Brown hope to be able to drastically reduce or eliminate mining accidents in the future.

     

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  21. article What's Up UA? - UA Law Students Will See Tuition Decrease in 2013-14

    Saturday, April 6, 2013 4:17 pm

    The Arizona Board of Regents has approved the University of Arizona's tuition proposal for 2013-14, sharply reducing overall tuition for law students and modestly increasing base tuition for undergraduate, graduate and medical students.

    Overall tuition for Arizona residents in the James E. Rogers College of Law Juris Doctor program will decrease by about 11 percent, to $24,381 next academic year from $27,288 this year. Non-resident students will see an approximate 8 percent decrease, to $38,841 from $42,298. Overall tuition includes base graduate tuition and mandatory fees, plus differential tuition.

    The tuition decrease is possible because new non-Juris Doctor, or JD, programs will diversify the student population and produce additional income. Lowering tuition is part of the college's larger plan to help students manage law school costs.

    About 80 percent of students in the JD program receive financial aid awards from the college – a higher percentage than most other law schools. "We believe that the tuition reduction will improve accessibility and allow our students to graduate with less debt," the UA wrote in supporting material to the regents.

    Other UA students, including medical students, will see an approximate 3 percent increase in base tuition and mandatory fees, which is necessary for the UA to meet its local, institutional and ABOR-mandated goals. The proposal was developed in consultation with undergraduate and graduate leadership and reflects their feedback and priorities.

    Resident undergraduate tuition and mandatory fees for the main campus will be $10,391 for 2013-14, up from $10,035 in 2012-13. For non-residents, tuition and fees will be $27,073, up from $26,231. At UA South, resident undergraduates will pay $8,166, up from $7,941, and non-residents will pay $26,570, up from $25,808.

    For resident graduate students on the main campus, tuition and fees will be $11,511, up from $11,122, and $27,383, up from $26,533, for non-residents. At UA South, resident graduate students will pay $10,690, up from $10,390, and non-residents would pay $26,880, up from $26,110.

    ABOR also approved an $80 per year increase in the mandatory library technology fee for students on the main campus.

    Tuition revenue generated by the increase will support key initiatives including the retention and graduation of students, seeding research, making engagement experiences possible for all students, online and alternative educational delivery, the retention and recruitment of faculty and attending to critical life, safety and code building repairs.

    The increase in tuition revenue will preserve student access to educational resources and lead to success through investments in financial aid, greater course availability and new sources of academic support. In the 2012 fiscal year, the UA invested more than $168 million in financial aid.

    For students in the College of Medicine-Tucson and the College of Medicine-Phoenix, tuition will increase to $28,686 for residents and $47,861 for non-residents. The modest increase will allow the colleges to offset state reductions with minimal impact to the educational experience.

    The colleges are the state's only providers of allopathic medical education, with more than 650 students enrolled.

    The board also set residence hall rates for 2013-14. On average, rates for undergraduate housing will increase by about 2 percent. Nine-month rates for undergraduate residence halls will range from $5,519 to $7,679, depending on the hall. Graduate housing rates will not increase.

    State budget cuts suffered by the UA – more than $180 million since 2008 – are unprecedented and well-documented. Adjusted for the Consumer Price Index, per-student funding for the UA is at its lowest level since 1967.

    Despite these sharp cuts, the UA has been achieving distinctions never before seen in its history. For the first time this academic year, overall enrollment topped 40,000. Retention and graduation rates are up, as is the number of baccalaureate degrees conferred.

    To replace lost state funding, the UA is diversifying the variety and size of its revenue streams and is undertaking projects to optimize its efficiency. The UA is completing a comprehensive, campus-wide strategic planning process that will directly tie the University's strategic plan to measurable goals, metrics and financial modeling.

     

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  22. article What's Up UA? - Physician, UA Alumnus Treats Patients in Antarctica

    Thursday, April 4, 2013 8:47 am

    Dr. Mitchell Cordover's neighbors are seals and penguins, and he has the pictures to prove it.

    The University of Arizona College of Medicine-Tucson alumnus currently is serving as the only physician at Palmer Station, Antarctica, for six months.

    Cordover, a member of the class of 1982, left his home in Missouri in early October. After 13 hours of flight time and a four-day ship passage from the southern tip of South America, he arrived at the small biological research station, a part of the United States Antarctic Program.

    Cordover's daily routine is far from ordinary. His workday begins at 7:30 a.m. and finishes at 5:30 p.m. Acting as the only physician on Palmer Station demands varying tasks.

    "My job includes treating scientists and support team members on a daily basis and maintaining readiness for significant emergencies. I have an X-ray machine, a very sophisticated telemedicine program, lab machines – all of which I have to be testing on a rotating and regular basis to make sure that everything is ready," he says. "I have dive accident and hypothermia equipment, and I maintain my own pharmacy. Additionally, I deal with public health matters like testing the water sources for contamination, conducting kitchen inspections, etc."

    "I also do some snow shoveling," he adds, with a laugh. "There is no janitorial staff here, either. They wanted to keep the beds for scientists. We all pitch in to keep the place clean and safe."

    The project was first established in 1967 and is funded by the National Science Foundation. The NSF requires all scientists and support team members to undergo many tests before they are accepted into a position in Antarctica. Therefore, Cordover says his peers are very healthy.

    "I'm starting with a very small and healthy population. I might see as few as one or two patients in a day because there are only 38-40 of us here right now. Because the base is small, I see everybody all the time. Much of the follow up work I do is during coffee breaks or after dinner. It's an informal, very intimate type of medical environment," he says. "One of the most meaningful parts of this job is feeling like I'm really supporting the important science that's going on here."

    Cordover says working internationally and in remote areas always has been of great interest to him, especially in recent years.

    "I decided to retire, but that only lasted for a couple of weeks. Then the opportunity arose to go to New Zealand, and I picked up on it, and now I'm in Antarctica. I apparently wasn't ready for retirement," he says.

    Cordover says having a level-headed son who has reached the age of 15 has freed him to try new things, like reinventing what it means to be a doctor.

    "You have to redefine what it means to be a physician. For me, retirement does not mean losing the skill or wasting a lifetime of knowledge. It's about reshaping and seeing the practice through a new lens," he says. "For me to sit around and play shuffle board is inconceivable."

    Although members of Cordover's family were able to journey with him from the United States to New Zealand, they were unable to join him this time around. The research base is the smallest of the three U.S. stations in Antarctica, sleeping only 44 people at capacity.

    Fortunately, the 65-year-old physician says he can communicate with his family almost every day.

    "Remarkably, it's not hard to stay in touch. It used to create a challenge to morale, but improved technology has made it much easier," he says. "Computer and satellite capabilities have improved. I can message back and forth, do face-to-face computer chatting and make phone calls. The whole place is wired for wi-fi."

    The technological capabilities of the site also allow for easy and effective telemedicine. Cordover says he is able to get specialists to help evaluate medical tests, images or video in real time and consultations to assist with treatment decisions within hours. Radiology 'over reads' are always less than 24 hours. It's as good as most U.S. hospitals.

    "The subcontractor that provides telemedicine to the Antarctic program is the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. They are a very active agent in telemedicine, providing it for ships at sea and for rural programs as well," he says.

    Cordover says that telemedicine technology has improved the quality of medical care in remote areas care and made practicing far safer for patients.

    "There is a high-definition camera here, and I can arrange within an hour or less for someone to be on the other end at UTMB. In addition to a camera, I have a number of fixtures that attach to my telemedicine camera that allow me to examine various things that can be seen by physicians on the other end," he explains. "There is a slit lamp side arm, cavity probes, close-up lenses and so on. The specialists can help me analyze whatever I'm looking at. I read my own X-rays, but I need a radiologist to do over reads on them, so I transmit my X-rays directly to their reading system. In a pinch I can call in and get a prompt read, with me and the radiologist looking at the same image on the screen."

    "For little places like this that are isolated, it's crucial. It would take me days to evacuate with a patient. I have a little intensive care unit here. I can keep you on good pain medications. I have an ultrasound machine and I can put a drain into almost anything, but it would take days to get a patient anywhere. The boat is four days away and the nearest station that has an airport is 10 hours away by ship," he says.

    It's clear the recent improvements in telemedicine have enhanced the safety of those working remote areas. The quick communication enables prompt, thorough patient care.

    While it's easy to stay connected to others across the world, experiencing similar living conditions is almost unimaginable.

    "We're just a tiny dot of settlement on a rocky point off of one little peninsula of a rather large Antarctic island. I think the entire campus is eight acres, but the part that we occupy is about two acres. We use a cluster of four buildings," he says. "When they originally built it, there wasn't any flat space. The buildings are connected by wooden walkways, with one man-made gravel road to get containers of food and supplies off the boat that comes about every month or two, depending on the time of year."

    Although he says he never knew he'd end up spending time in Antarctica, he admits he's always loved providing health care in remote areas.

    "It never crossed my mind that there was even work to do in Antarctica, but I always imagined working in isolated and challenging places. I did five years of public health work on the Navajo Reservation and that was a very satisfying, transformative experience for me," he says. "There were plenty of people who would do my ED job in St. Louis. But for me, those of my colleagues who don't mind a little inconvenience, there is almost an obligation to fill in where others might be reticent to go."

    Since arriving at the station, Cordover says he's witnessed more than sophisticated science. He notes that the wildlife is one of the most interesting aspects of the Antarctic lifestyle.

    "I just spent the morning watching whales from my back porch. For us working here, the wildlife can be a pain in the neck. There are very strict rules about not interacting with the animals in any way. We can't change their natural behavior," he explains. "The land around our station is one of very few places where an animal can pull up out of the water. I see penguins and seals all the time."

    While he admits the penguins are cute and the seals are fascinating, he says they can get in the way of the productivity.

    "There are three predominant species of seals in the areas. Some of them weigh as much as 11,000 pounds, and they heave up onto our boat ramp. You can't injure or harass them, so we have a guy who is designated as the 'seal wrangler' – he's a wildlife biologist. He and a couple of the others have this technique of chasing seals off the boat ramp," he says. "But if they won’t move, you're stuck. The penguins just pop out any old place they please. They are utterly unafraid because no one has ever bothered them before."

    But when work is put aside, Cordover says he's been able to see some breathtaking sights.

    "We have one day off per week. Sometimes we'll go up on the glacier to do skiing or photography, and there's also boating. The penguin chicks are just now hatching, and that's a neat experience to see," he says.

    As captivated as he is by the wildlife, science and his peers at the station, Cordover says he's thankful for his UA College of Medicine-Tucson training and experiences.

    "The University of Arizona was a unique place to get an education. It was much more personable, primary care oriented and humanistic than many other universities, according to all my friends," he says. "Egalitarianism and sensitivity – that has served me very well – that sense of humanity. I could have learned anatomy and biochemistry anywhere else, but what they've taught me has served my whole career."

    Cordover will return home to Missouri in late April, but will have six months worth of memories, photos and experiences to last him a lifetime. With retirement as a foreign concept, one can hardly imagine where he will end up next.

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  23. article What's Up UA? - UA Course Explores Role of Fathers

    Tuesday, April 2, 2013 9:59 am

    Raised by a single mom, Caitlin Hawley grew up without a steady father figure in her life, so when she heard about a class at the University of Arizona that focuses specifically on the role of dads, she was intrigued.

    "I wanted to get a perspective on the role of fatherhood," said the UA sophomore.

    Hawley, an honors student majoring in psychology and anthropology, is one of about 150 undergraduate students to complete "Men, Fatherhood and Families: A Biocultural Perspective," a new UA general education course that was offered for the first time in the fall.

    Offered through the John & Doris Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences, the course is part of the school's Fathers, Parenting and Families Initiative, a research and education effort within the Frances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families.

    The class – which examines the role of fathers across cultures, species and time, through biological, social and evolutionary lenses – was the vision of school benefactor John Norton.

    "Part of the wish of John Norton was to be able to have young men at the University of Arizona learn something about being fathers and fatherhood – about what kind of fathering helps and what kind of fathering hurts," said Bruce Ellis, John & Doris Norton Endowed Chair in Fathers, Parenting, and Families.

    "It's about the influence of fathers – when fathers invest, how they invest, when it makes a difference, when it doesn't make a difference – and trying to understand comparative perspectives on fatherhood, not just in humans but other species as well; trying to understand the larger patterns of fathering and trying to understand the evolutionary basis of fatherhood," said Ellis, who helped develop the curriculum for the class.

    The course is co-taught by renowned primate researchers Dieter and Netzin Steklis, a husband-and-wife team with 20 years of experience studying mountain gorillas. They sometimes draw from their field observations when talking to their students about the role of fathers.

    "One thing we noticed that always touched us is how these big, huge, male silverback gorillas would play with the little guys, and it was remarkable how rambunctious yet gentle they were," Netzin Steklis said. "We know that human fathers also do a lot of rough and tumble play with their kids."

    In exploring fathers' roles, the Steklises look at fatherhood across a variety of species and cultures and throughout different periods of history. They also examine the stages leading up to fatherhood, beginning with the "mating game."

    "We're not advocating that every woman get married and have a 'traditional' nuclear family, because society is diverse and people have different attitudes, but if you understand the functionality of fatherhood, you can find a way to fill that role," Dieter Steklis said.

    It's uncommon for a university to offer an undergraduate general education course devoted entirely to fatherhood, Ellis said. More often, classes on the topic are offered only to upper-division or graduate-level students in family studies-related programs.

    The UA hopes to change this by becoming a model for universities across the nation. The Steklises, who have three children of their own, are currently working on a general education fathering textbook they hope can be used by other schools.

    "We're trying to make it so that it's really easy for another university to offer a fathers course," Netzin Steklis said. "This is for everybody, and everybody should be taking it. I certainly would require it for our own kids."

    The course has quickly become a favorite among UA undergraduates, and plans are in the works to develop an online version of the class to help meet student demand, Ellis said.

    Dominic Zamora, a psychology major who is taking the class this semester, said he enrolled because he hopes to one day become a dad. 

    "I have an interest in becoming a father someday, and after reading the description of the class, I thought it could teach me some valuable lessons," said the UA senior.

    Julie Nguyen, a junior majoring in family studies and human development, took the course last semester and said it opened her eyes to an evolutionary perspective on fatherhood.

    "The types of fathering we have as humans is very unique," she said. "We often hear negative things about fathers not being around, but compared to other species, we have very involved fathers."

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  24. article What's Up UA? - UA Course Explores Role of Fathers

    Saturday, March 30, 2013 9:09 am

    Raised by a single mom, Caitlin Hawley grew up without a steady father figure in her life, so when she heard about a class at the University of Arizona that focuses specifically on the role of dads, she was intrigued.

    "I wanted to get a perspective on the role of fatherhood," said the UA sophomore.

    Hawley, an honors student majoring in psychology and anthropology, is one of about 150 undergraduate students to complete "Men, Fatherhood and Families: A Biocultural Perspective," a new UA general education course that was offered for the first time in the fall.

    Offered through the John & Doris Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences, the course is part of the school's Fathers, Parenting and Families Initiative, a research and education effort within theFrances McClelland Institute for Children, Youth, and Families.

    The class – which examines the role of fathers across cultures, species and time, through biological, social and evolutionary lenses – was the vision of school benefactor John Norton.

    "Part of the wish of John Norton was to be able to have young men at the University of Arizona learn something about being fathers and fatherhood – about what kind of fathering helps and what kind of fathering hurts," said Bruce Ellis, John & Doris Norton Endowed Chair in Fathers, Parenting, and Families.

    "It's about the influence of fathers – when fathers invest, how they invest, when it makes a difference, when it doesn't make a difference – and trying to understand comparative perspectives on fatherhood, not just in humans but other species as well; trying to understand the larger patterns of fathering and trying to understand the evolutionary basis of fatherhood," said Ellis, who helped develop the curriculum for the class.

    The course is co-taught by renowned primate researchers Dieter and Netzin Steklis, a husband-and-wife team with 20 years of experience studying mountain gorillas. They sometimes draw from their field observations when talking to their students about the role of fathers.

    "One thing we noticed that always touched us is how these big, huge, male silverback gorillas would play with the little guys, and it was remarkable how rambunctious yet gentle they were," Netzin Steklis said. "We know that human fathers also do a lot of rough and tumble play with their kids."

    In exploring fathers' roles, the Steklises look at fatherhood across a variety of species and cultures and throughout different periods of history. They also examine the stages leading up to fatherhood, beginning with the "mating game."

    "We're not advocating that every woman get married and have a 'traditional' nuclear family, because society is diverse and people have different attitudes, but if you understand the functionality of fatherhood, you can find a way to fill that role," Dieter Steklis said.

    It's uncommon for a university to offer an undergraduate general education course devoted entirely to fatherhood, Ellis said. More often, classes on the topic are offered only to upper-division or graduate-level students in family studies-related programs.

    The UA hopes to change this by becoming a model for universities across the nation. The Steklises, who have three children of their own, are currently working on a general education fathering textbook they hope can be used by other schools.

    "We're trying to make it so that it's really easy for another university to offer a fathers course," Netzin Steklis said. "This is for everybody, and everybody should be taking it. I certainly would require it for our own kids."

    The course has quickly become a favorite among UA undergraduates, and plans are in the works to develop an online version of the class to help meet student demand, Ellis said.

    Dominic Zamora, a psychology major who is taking the class this semester, said he enrolled because he hopes to one day become a dad. 

    "I have an interest in becoming a father someday, and after reading the description of the class, I thought it could teach me some valuable lessons," said the UA senior.

    Julie Nguyen, a junior majoring in family studies and human development, took the course last semester and said it opened her eyes to an evolutionary perspective on fatherhood.

    "The types of fathering we have as humans is very unique," she said. "We often hear negative things about fathers not being around, but compared to other species, we have very involved fathers."

     

  25. article What's Up UA? - Artifacts Shed Light on Social Networks of the Past

    Tuesday, March 26, 2013 12:28 pm

    The advent of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have made us all more connected, but long-distance social networks existed long before the Internet.

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