Rutgers Research News

Rutgers expert on NPR about cell phones and driving

2012-01-11T13:05:00.000-05:00

The National Transportation Safety Board is advising against cell phone use — and even using hands-free devices — while driving. But even some cell phone safety advocates think the recommendation goes too far.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

A federal proposal to ban all texting or talking while driving is drawing audible gasps around the country. The National Transportation Safety Board is urging states to outlaw even hands-free devices, saying they're simply too dangerous.

NPR's Tovia Smith reports.

TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: They may or may not be in their cars, but there are definitely a lot of people tweeting, texting and talking today about the sweeping ban being proposed by NTSB chair, Deborah Hersman.

DEBORAH HERSMAN: We know that this is going to be very unpopular with some people, but we're not here to win a popularity contest. We're here to do the right thing.

SMITH: Thirty-four states already ban texting while driving. Nine states ban calling on a handheld phone. None go so far as to ban even hands-free calls, but Hersman says a decade of investigating crashes has convinced the agency that even just talking hands-free is a dangerous distraction and should be banned.

HERSMAN: Ask the family members. They will tell you that there have been thousands of deaths that didn't need to happen.

ROB REYNOLDS: We think that it's something that is long overdue and we know that if it were put in place it would save lives.

SMITH: Rob Reynolds' oldest daughter Cady was killed by a distracted driver in 2007. He now runs FocusDriven, a group that believes the only way to drive safely is to drive cell-free. But there are others who see an all-out ban as too drastic. Jeff Larson with the Safe Roads Alliance in Massachusetts says focus should be on getting more states to ban handheld calls. If not, he says, police can't even enforce the laws against texting.

JEFF LARSON: Right now, if you're trying to text on your phone, you can just say, I was dialing a phone number and that's not technically texting. You're allowed to do that. We need to pass a hands-free law, which means that if you're manipulating your phone and police see it, you can get a ticket.

SMITH: Jerry Cibley says a hands-free law might have saved his son, Jordan, who was 18 when he dropped his cell phone on the floor of his car and crashed into a tree trying to pick it up. But Cibley says the argument that even hands-free talking is distracting and needs to be banned is silly.

JERRY CIBLEY: Let's ban car radios, too. I think that would be a good idea. And let's ban passengers and let's ban children. I mean, one of the biggest distractions are children in the backseats. We're not going to outlaw people from having their children.

SMITH: Instead, Cibley says, we require car seats and we use technology to make car seats as safe as possible. There are already devices that can block or limit distracted driving. For example, if a cell phone is determined through GPS to be in a moving vehicle, it could be automatically shut off.

Or Richard Martin at Rutgers University is working on software that would enable a more surgical strike by figuring out whether a phone is being used by a driver or a passenger.

RICHARD MARTIN: The technology's definitely there to bring a hammer down and disable all phone usage or you could be a little more subtle and try to tie it with more environmental factors like how you're driving the vehicle, like weaving, for example, to determine if you should get cut off or something like that.

SMITH: Car makers are developing their own systems; for example, enabling any phone to be operated with voice commands. But they oppose the NTSB's call for an all-out ban. As one of them put it, it's like Prohibition; it's unrealistic and it won't work.

Tovia Smith, NPR News.

Rutgers University Named as Nation's Repository for Tourette Syndrome Cells

2012-01-05T10:57:00.002-05:00

New Jersey is a major center for research into the cause and treatment of Tourette syndrome, a neurological disorder known by its "tics," or involuntary vocal and physical behavior, which often are accompanied by other ills like attention deficit disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, depression and anxiety. Now that research is poised to move into high gear: Rutgers University has been designated the nation's Tourette cell repository by the National Institute of Mental Health.

The full story can be found here.

Rutgers-Camden Researcher Examines How Brain Perceives Shades of Gray

2011-11-15T11:11:00.000-05:00

CAMDEN — How the brain perceives color is one of its more impressive tricks. It is able to keep a stable perception of an object’s color as lighting conditions change.

Sarah Allred, an assistant professor of psychology at Rutgers–Camden, has teamed up with psychologists from the University of Pennsylvania on groundbreaking research that provides new insight into how this works.

Allred conducted the research with Alan L. Gilchrist, a professor of psychology at Rutgers–Newark, and professor David H. Brainard and post-doctoral fellow Ana Radonjic, both of the University of Pennsylvania. Their research will be published in the journal Current Biology.

“Although we recognize easily the colors of objects in many different environments, this is a difficult problem for the brain,” Allred says. “For example, consider just the gray scale that goes from black to white. A white piece of paper in bright sunlight reflects thousands of times more light to the eye than a white piece of paper indoors, but both pieces of paper look white. How does the brain do this?”

The process of seeing an object begins when light reflected off that object hits the light-sensitive structures in the eye. The perception of an object’s lightness (in terms of color shade) depends on the object’s reflectance. Objects that appear lighter reflect a larger percentage of light than those that appear darker.

Allred says the brain processes perceptual differences between black and white objects even when illumination of the object changes. If the brain did not do this, it would fail to distinguish color shade in different light.

In general, white objects reflect about 90 percent of the light that hits them, and black objects reflect about three percent, a ratio of 30-to-1, she explains.

“However, if you look at the intensities of light that enter the eye from a typical scene, like a field of lilies, that ratio is much higher, usually somewhere between 10,000-to-1 and a million-to-1,” Allred says.

This happens because in addition to having objects with different reflectance, real “scenes” also have different levels of illumination. One example might be a shadowed area under a tree. Allred and her research colleagues wanted to determine how the brain maps a large range of light intensity onto a much smaller reflectance range.

One long-time hypothesis is that the brain segments scenes into different regions of illumination and then uses ratio coding to decide what looks white.

To test if this hypothesis was true, the researchers conducted an experiment where participants viewed images that had a very large range of light intensities. Participants were asked to look at a 5x5 checkerboard composed of grayscale squares with random intensities spanning the 10,000-to-1 range. They were asked to report what shades of gray a target square looked like by selecting a match from a standardized gray scale.

If the visual system relied only on ratios to determine surface lightness, then the ratio of checkerboard intensities the participants reported should have had the same ratio as that of the black and white samples on the reflectance scale, about 100-to-1.

Instead, the researchers found that this ratio could be as much as 50 times higher, more than 5,000-to-1.

“This research is important because we have falsified the ratio hypothesis, which is currently the most widely invoked explanation of how we perceive lightness,” Allred says. “We also were able to reject several similar models of lightness. We were able to do this because we measured lightness in such high-range and relatively complex images.”

She continues, “In addition, even though we used behavioral rather than physiological measures, our results provide insight into the neural mechanisms that must underlie the behavioral results.”

A Philadelphia resident, Allred received her undergraduate degree from Brigham Young University and her graduate degree from the University of Washington. She is also conducting research on color memory and perception through a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation.

Rutgers Neuroscientist says Critical Protein Prevents Secondary Damage after Stroke

2011-11-02T10:38:00.000-04:00

One of two proteins that regulate nerve cells and assist in overall brain function may be the key to preventing long-term damage as a result of a stroke, the leading cause of disability and third leading cause of death in the United States.

In a recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Bonnie Firestein, professor of cell biology and neuroscience, in the School of Arts and Sciences, says the new research indicates that increased production of two proteins – cypin and PSD-95 – results in very different outcomes.

While cypin – a protein that regulates nerve cell and neuron branching critical to normal brain functioning -- prevents nerve cells not damaged during the initial stroke from losing the ability to communicate with other cells and halts any secondary brain or neurological damage, PSD-95 accelerates cell destruction and inhibits recovery. Secondary injury from a stroke can occur days or even weeks after the injury and often includes a lack of blood flow, insufficient oxygen, and swelling of the brain.

“We don’t know how or why cypin acts during this process, but what we do know is that cypin helps nerve cells survive,” said Firestein, who first isolated and identified cypin more than a decade ago. Since then, she has been researching how it works in the brain and could be used to treat traumatic brain injury and other serious neurological disorders.

Firestein and her former graduate student Chia-Yi Tseng conducted the laboratory research by putting nerve cells in a dish and creating an “experimental stroke” – mimicking a massive amount of glutamate released, resulting in nerve cells destroyed.

They wanted to determine if anything could be done to stop the secondary damage that occurs after a stroke and discovered that while a greater number of neurons that survived the stroke were spared secondary destruction with increased amounts of cypin, too much PSD-95 resulted in the death of nerve cells not damaged inititally.

“I would hope that this research aids in the development of an effective therapeutic intervention, saving neurons and reducing the long-term effects of stroke and other traumatic brain injuries,” said Firestein.

CNBC features "Green" Railroad Ties Developed at Rutgers

2011-10-14T14:39:00.001-04:00

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000057782.

Rutgers, UMDNJ research provides insight into fighting viruses

2011-09-30T14:48:00.004-04:00

Researchers at Rutgers and UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School have determined the structure of a protein that is the first line of defense in fighting viral infections including influenza, hepatitis C, West Nile, rabies, and measles.

Principal investigators of the study, “Structural basis of RNA recognition and activation by innate immune recept or RIG-I,” chosen for advanced online publication in Nature, say the research is key in the development of broad-based drug therapies to combat viral infections.

"Understanding innate immunity to viral infections is crucial to developing drugs that can fight viruses or control inflammation," says Joseph Marcotrigiano, assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers who along with Smita Patel, professor of biochemistry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, are principal investigators on the newly released study. "Having this foundation is extremely important."
RIG-I is a receptor protein that recognizes differences in molecular patterns in order to differentiate viral RNA—the process during which virus particles makes new copies of themselves within a host cell and can then infect other cells—from cellular RNA. What researchers discovered is that viral RNA, as opposed to single-stranded cellular RNA, is a double-stranded structure. This double-stranded difference is the reason the RIG-I protein recognizes it and initiates a signal to induce anti-immune and anti-inflammatory defenses within the cell.
Prior to this research, there was little understanding on how RIG-I protein recognized the viral infections, says Patel. Knowing. That it is due to the double-stranded molecular structure of the viral RNA is critical because, he says, "a failure of RIG-I to identify viral RNA can lead to alterations of the cell, including cell death, inflammation, autoimmune diseases, and cancer."
This is a first step, the scientists say, in helping to develop therapies that interfere with a broad variety of viral infections—a major breakthrough for millions of people who get sick from viruses which cannot be treated effectively by current medication.
"This work provides unprecedented insights on the molecular mechanism of viral RNA recognition by RIG-I," says Barbara Gerratana, who oversees enzyme catalysis grants at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. "As a result, we have a deeper understanding of how the human body fights viral infections and a structural basis of the development of new anti-viral therapeutics."

U.S. Rep. Rush Holt says government support of research and development has fallen by nearly two-thirds since the 1960s

2011-09-16T10:33:00.000-04:00

Two paths that could affect the future of science are diverging on Capitol Hill, according to U.S. Rep. Rush Holt.

One -- the idea "that the federal government can play no substantive role in advancing science or technology" -- the Democratic congressman calls "grim and pessimistic." The other -- the idea that recognizes federally funded scientific endeavors can help the economy flourish -- Holt calls "far more hopeful."

But, he said, it’s the former that’s taking root in Washington.

For the whole story, go here.

Rutgers Professor Honored by NASA

2011-09-15T11:49:00.001-04:00

POINT PLEASANT BEACH — Doyle Knight, a Rutgers University professor and borough resident, received recognition from the nation’s space agency Wednesday for his contributions to a study on the U.S. rocket industry.

“This was one of the best but most challenging projects I have ever managed for the agency, and I was glad to have someone of Professor Knight’s caliber on my team,” said Ave K. Kludze Jr., an engineering program manager for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Knight, 62, a professor in Rutgers University’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, received the NASA Certificate of Appreciation from Kludze.

For the full article go here.

EPA to Fund Pollution Prevention Projects in New Jersey

2011-09-14T16:02:00.001-04:00

STATE — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is making pollution prevention grants to two New Jersey universities, officials have announced.

“EPA’s pollution prevention grants help businesses, colleges and state agencies identify strategies to reduce the use of toxic materials, save energy, protect human health and save money,” said Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck. “These grants will fund programs that reduce or eliminate waste at the source, instead of treating pollution after it is generated.”

Rowan University will use a $106,194 EPA grant to assist the pharmaceutical industry in implementing source reduction, pollution prevention, and green engineering design through an engineering clinic program. In these clinics, Rowan professors and students will demonstrate to industry representatives how they can reduce energy consumption, water consumption, hazardous material releases and save money in their manufacturing processes.

With the help of a $50,000 EPA grant, the Rutgers University Center for Advanced Energy Systems will implement a smart electrical metering system on their Busch and Livingston campuses in Piscataway. Smart meters record energy consumption and communicate that information to utilities and their customers. This system will allow Rutgers to identify ways to achieve energy efficiency and reduce energy consumption, while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and energy costs. Rutgers will demonstrate the results of the smart metering system to other universities in the state system and neighboring universities.

EPA is additionally providing Rutgers University with a $150,000 grant to recruit high school students as “Water Champions” to lead water conservation changes throughout their communities. These students will educate their communities about water conservation, recruit local retailers to participate in selling water efficient devices, gather data and calculate water saved from installations of water efficient devices, share project results and encourage participation from other organizations.

These grants are part of the approximately $4 million in grants EPA awards each year aimed at preventing pollution across the nation.

Where Budding Magnates Experiment With Recipes

2011-09-02T09:57:00.003-04:00

WHEN Innocenzo and Michele Visceglia stopped making their pasta sauce at the Rutgers Food Innovation Center here in late August, it was the end of an era — but not the kind of era would-be food entrepreneurs might feel reluctant to bid adieu. Every Wednesday since early this year, when the Visceglias first began using the compoundlike center’s equipment and space, they rose at dawn and traveled 45 minutes to get here from their home in Williamstown, near Glassboro. By 7:30 a.m., they were suited up in the center’s regulation white smocks, rubber boots and hairnets. Around 3:30 or 4 p.m., they emerged, exhausted and splattered in the day’s yield of 600 quarts of tomato sauce.

For full story go here.

Hand axes unearthed in Kenya are oldest advanced stone tools ever found

2011-08-31T09:20:00.000-04:00

Discovery suggests early humans were wielding sophisticated stone tools at least 300,000 years earlier than thought.

A rare haul of picks, flakes and hand axes recovered from ancient sediments in Kenya are the oldest remains of advanced stone tools yet discovered.

Archaeologists unearthed the implements while excavating mudstone banks on the shores of Lake Turkana in the remote north-west of the country.

The largest of the tools are around 20cm long and have been chipped into shape on two sides, a hallmark of more sophisticated stone toolmaking techniques probably developed by Homo erectus, an ancestor of modern humans.

For the full story go here

Adding Caffeine to Sunscreen Could Guard Against Skin Cancer

2011-08-15T11:15:00.002-04:00

Caffeine may help protect against some skin cancers by promoting the destruction of cells damaged by sunlight.

Scientists have worked out how caffeine might protect against certain skin cancers – a finding that could lead to better sunscreens.

The research, conducted in mice, suggests that caffeine changes the activity of a gene involved in the destruction of cells that have DNA damage and are therefore more likely to become cancerous. The scientists said this may lead to new ways of preventing skin cancer, though other experts cautioned that it did not mean coffee lovers were better protected against the disease.

For the full article go here.

Baby Brains May Signal Later Language Problems

2011-07-20T13:07:00.001-04:00

Research on how infants only a few months old process sound in their brains may provide a means to predict later language difficulties. An article in Scientific American's August 2011 issue—"How to Build a Better Learner"—chronicles the work of April Benasich at Rutgers University and how she and her colleagues use electroencephalographic recording to test the adequacy of a baby's ability to process sounds. The researchers are also developing interventions that might correct any deficiencies encountered.

For the full story and a video go to http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=benasich-baby-brains-signal-later-language-problems

Rutgers-led Experts Assemble Globe-Spanning Supercomputer Cloud

2011-07-11T13:32:00.001-04:00

(Media-Newswire.com) - Until now, using supercomputing to solve research problems or industrial tasks required significant expertise and effort. And if a single supercomputer couldn’t provide enough power, you had to build a bigger one or link two or more together – not a trivial undertaking even for the experts.

Manish Parashar, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rutgers, was part of a team that recently demonstrated a better way. The group, which included experts from IBM and the University of Texas at Austin, created a massive virtual supercomputer cloud capable of easily solving the toughest computing tasks.

The team brought home first place in a contest run by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ( IEEE ), known as the IEEE SCALE 2011 Challenge.

Full story http://media-newswire.com/release_1155551.html

R&D Magazine Cites Bridges Made of Rutgers Plastic Lumber among Year’s Top 100 Technology Products

2011-06-29T13:37:00.001-04:00

Bridges made of Rutgers-developed recycled plastic lumber are among this year’s top 100 technologically significant products, as cited by R&D Magazine.

The bridges that the magazine honored are now carrying tanks and trains across rivers at U.S. Army bases in North Carolina and Virginia. They are made from recycled milk and detergent bottles along with recycled plastic automobile bumpers, a formula that delivers surprising strength, durability, economy, and eco-friendliness.

The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center submitted the nomination and is sharing the prestigious award with Rutgers, inventor of the plastic technology; Axion International, which manufactures the plastic lumber; and the McLaren Engineering Group.

Army researchers worked with Rutgers to design beams and pilings that could withstand the weight of 70-ton Army M1 Abrams tanks and 120-ton railroad diesel locomotives. The plastic bridges replaced rotting wooden bridges at Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Eustis in Newport News, Virginia.

“These are ideal settings for using our durable and environmentally friendly material,” said Tom Nosker, principal investigator with Rutgers’ Advanced Polymer Center, affiliated with the university’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He noted that the new bridges will last longer than wooden bridges and will not leach harmful preservatives into the sensitive wetland environments at the bases. Building bridges with the innovative plastic components was also faster and less expensive than using steel and concrete.

The Rutgers-designed, Axion International-manufactured plastic lumber also has been used to make railroad ties used by transit systems and freight railroads around the country.

R&D Magazine, which serves researchers and laboratory managers, has been making its awards since 1963, citing technologies that in many cases went on to become familiar household names and workplace fixtures. Over the years, R&D 100 awards have been bestowed on the automated teller machine, the fax machine, liquid crystal displays, Taxol anticancer drug and high definition TV technology.

Media Contact: Carl Blesch
732-932-7084

Rutgers students developing system to provide parking availability information

2011-06-25T13:34:00.000-04:00

The beginnings of ParkNet

Professor Marco Gruteser and students at Rutgers University’s Wireless Information Network Laboratory are writing their own accidental invention story.

Starting out studying real-time traffic monitoring using mobile phones, they eventually invented ParkNet — a system that provides information on where parking spots are available in a crowded city.

"People have counted how long cars circle around these blocks, and there are some amazing statistics that have come up," said Gruteser, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering. "In the Park Slope area of Brooklyn, up to 45 percent of the cars driving seem to be cruising for parking."

Gruteser, his students and Wade Trappe, associate director of the Rutgers WINLAB, were looking into real-time traffic monitoring when they realized there were limitations.

Tracking the speed of mobile phones, they could estimate traffic flow and how long it would take to get to Manhattan. But then there was the next step: How long does it take to find a parking spot?

"At some point, we realized that there’s this other story — once you get to your destination, you need to find a place to park," Gruteser said. "And getting real-time parking information is difficult and there wasn’t any good source for it. So we came up with this way to sense parking information and be able to get it to your navigation system."
Full story http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/06/rutgers_students_developing_sy.html

FDA approves second anti-HIV drug from Rutgers-Janssen collaboration

2011-06-24T13:35:00.001-04:00

Two decades after Rutgers scientists began working with Paul Janssen, a legendary drug developer and founder of Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica, to create new and potent drugs to fight AIDS, the FDA has approved the second anti-HIV drug that came from this collaboration.

-For a drug to successfully make it to the finish line, countless obstacles must be overcome,- said Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology Eddy Arnold, who led the Rutgers team of scientists. -As a researcher in biomedical sciences I can tell you that helping to create new medicines is something you always dream about.

Full story http://www.news-medical.net/news/20110624/FDA-approves-second-anti-HIV-drug-from-Rutgers-Janssen-collaboration.aspx

Rutgers faculty member awarded prestigious NIH MERIT renewal

2011-04-05T13:42:00.002-04:00

Dr. Patrick J. Sinko, the Parke-Davis Endowed Chair and Professor II in Pharmaceutics at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has recently been awarded a five year continuation on his prestigious National Institute of Health MERIT award. His research endeavors have the potential to not only improve the lives of people living with HIV and affected by cancer, but may also help improve the economy of New Jersey as well.

Dr. Sinko and his team of researchers at Rutgers are developing novel anti-AIDS drug delivery systems that selectively target immune cells infected by HIV. His laboratory, located in the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy on Rutgers’ Busch Campus in Piscataway, NJ, involves a large group of researchers focused on the design, fabrication, and evaluation of molecular-scale drug and diagnostic delivery technologies applied broadly to AIDS, asthma, breast and lung cancer, and chemical counterterrorism.

Rutgers currently has four MERIT awardees, including Dr. Sinko. NIH MERIT awards are given to a select number of funded investigators (<5%) who have demonstrated superior competence and outstanding productivity during their previous research endeavors and are leaders in their field with paradigm-shifting ideas. The objective of the MERIT Award is to provide long-term, stable support to investigators in order to foster their continued creativity and to spare them the administrative burdens associated with frequently preparing and submitting research grant applications. This allows investigators like Dr. Sinko the opportunity to take greater risks, to be more adventurous in their lines of inquiry, and to take more time to develop new techniques. During the past 20 years at Rutgers, Dr. Sinko has attracted more than $22 million in research support from industry and government funders. His group currently has several additional NIH-funded projects for the development of a nanocarrier-based vaginal hydrogel to prevent HIV transmission, a dual passive-active targeting technology for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer, and the development of eye, lung, and skin countermeasures for use after a chemical terrorism event. Dr. Sinko has also received numerous awards for his research, including the Rutgers University Board of Trustees’ Award for Excellence in Research in 2010. In 2003, he was named a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists.

While at one time the Garden State was the unchallenged leader of the global pharmaceutical industry, New Jersey has recently seen its leadership role challenged as many of the state's pharmaceutical companies have reduced their R&D efforts as a result of mergers and downsizing. This has resulted in a technology-innovation shift and emergence of an alternative drug development pipeline outside of the traditional “Large Pharma” industry model, involving smaller, more agile startup companies working collaboratively with university researchers like Dr. Sinko to develop novel pharmaceuticals and novel means for delivering them. Like many other Rutgers faculty inventors, Dr. Sinko, who is also Rutgers’ Associate Vice President for Research, is highly focused on translating his research into new commercial products through a variety of mechanisms, including the founding of start-up companies. A past co-founder of two successful pharmaceutical start ups, NaviCyte, Inc. and TheraPort Biosciences, Dr. Sinko is currently involved in efforts to launch new start-up companies based on his research group’s more recent innovative technologies.

Dr. Sinko hopes that the multiplicity of activities resulting from his drug delivery and targeting efforts will greatly improve the health of patients in New Jersey and the United States, and possibly, the health of New Jersey’s economy. “Universities have a long track record providing a dynamic environment that generates important research and technologies that drive innovation and economic development,” says Sinko.

Rutgers Research Showcase: Oct 15, 2010

2010-10-22T12:54:00.000-04:00

On Oct 15, 2010, the Rutgers Research Showcase featured over a dozen talks but Rutgesr faculty on federally projects that are of interest to industry.

Rutgers sets a new research funding record with $433.9M

2010-09-10T06:42:00.010-04:00

Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey announced a new record of $433.9 million in external research funding for fiscal year ending June 30, 2010. “It’s great to see so many Rutgers faculty members receiving such high recognition for scientific research and economic development,” explains Michael Pazzani Ph.D., Vice President for Research and Graduate & Professional Studies at Rutgers. “The Federal Government remains a crucial source for our work here at Rutgers increasing awards by nearly 23 percent, and we are grateful to all of the agencies for all of their support and continued commitment to research across disciplines.

An annual report detailing some of the research projects is available at http://orsp.rutgers.edu/downloads/AnnualRpt/rutgersanualreport10online.pdf

The increase was largely due to the exceptional work of Rutgers faculty including Professor Jay Tischfield Ph.D., who was awarded $9.4 million from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to support the Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository, Professor Nenad Gucunski Ph.D. who received $8.8 million from the National Institute of Standards for an Automated Nondestructive Evaluation and Rehabilitation System, Amy Cohen-Corwin who received a $5M award from the National Science Foundation to create the "New Jersey Partnership for Excellence in Middle School Mathematics" that will educate 100-120 middle school mathematics teachers, and Professor Glenn Amatucci Ph.D. who received an award for $3 million by the Department of Energy for the Northeastern Chemical Energy Storage Center in collaboration with Stony Brook University.

The previous record, set in fiscal year 2009, was $391.8 million in external funding; ranging in projects from personalized medicine, life sciences, wireless networking technologies, computer engineering, to alternative energy. The University also received a number of grants to support educational programs, including Professor Michael Palis Ph.D. who received $600,000 for Building a Sustainable Pipeline of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM) Scholars at Rutgers-Camden. Professor Deborah Silver Ph.D. was also awarded $700,000 to start the Masters of Business & Science (MBS), New Jersey’s first Professional Science Masters degree.

Other prominent awards this year included three Rutgers faculty members Professor Jimmy de la Torre Ph.D., Professor Charles R. Keeton II Ph.D. and Professor Hao Lin Ph.D. who received the National Science Foundation (NSF) Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers award, the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on young professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers. Professor Ki-bum Lee Ph.D. was also awarded the NIH Director's New Innovator Award and Professor George M. Carman, Ph.D., received the prestigious MERIT Award from the NIH.Rutgers faculty have been awarded new grants and contracts of over $433.9M in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010. In the prior year, a total of $391M in new awards were made.

The federal agencies with the largest grant awards at Rutgers are listed below

National Institutes of Health: $131.7
National Science Foundation: $75.4
Department of Agriculture: $30.3
Department of Defense: $20.0
Department of Transportation: $18.6
Department Of Energy: $10.3
Department of Education: $8.3

Rutgers lab puts $9.6M in stimulus funding to work

2010-03-30T09:40:00.002-04:00

Rutgers lab puts $9.6M in stimulus funding to work

A research center that houses samples used to explore disease treatments will open expanded facilities this summer after receiving federal grants.
The Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository, located on the school’s Busch Campus, in Piscataway, is renovating its lab space and completing construction on a new storage facility for research samples. Jay Tischfield, chair of the department of genetics and scientific director of the repository, said RUCDR researches genetic causes for complex diseases — work that may lead to new treatments.
Tischfield said the repository received $9.6 million in a construction grant under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly called the federal stimulus, to cover costs for a new space.
Go to http://www.njbiz.com/article-multiple/81094-rutgers-lab-puts-96m-in-stimulus-funding-to-work for the full story.

Give the gift of happiness this Valentine's Day

2010-02-10T15:21:00.000-05:00

By Brian Minter - Surrey North Delta Leader
Published: February 10, 2010 11:00 AM

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, and with the downturn in world economies affecting almost everyone, folks are looking for value gifts this year.
According to the latest research, a gift of flowers makes people truly happy. To approach this in a scientific manner, the Society of American Florists partnered with the world renowned researcher, Jeannette Haviland-Jones, PhD., of Rutgers University, on some ground-breaking research to examine the effect of flowers on human emotion and well being. Over a 10-month period, some very interesting results were discovered. Haviland-Jones and her research team found that the presence of flowers triggers happy emotions, heightens feelings of life satisfaction and affects future behaviour in a positive manner far beyond what is normally true. Flowers are a natural and healthful moderator of moods.
Full story http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/lifestyles/84038147.html

Rutgers shares Google grant to help develop greener Internet

2010-02-04T15:23:00.000-05:00

Feb 4, 2010
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Google Inc. has awarded a two-year, $1 million research grant aimed at slashing energy usage in large Internet data centers to a team of computer scientists at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), Rutgers University, the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. The company may award an additional $500,000 for a third year after reviewing the research program’s progress.

The grant is the largest that Google this week awarded in the area of computing energy efficiency, and is part of $5.7 million that the company awarded to 12 university projects in areas of key interest to the company and the computing research community. Energy efficiency is a key concern for Internet companies because data centers can consume large amounts of power.
“Data centers have to be built to handle the highest anticipated demand,” said Ricardo Bianchini, computer science professor in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. “But most of the time, they are only running between 20 and 50 percent of capacity. Trouble is, the computer servers in these centers consume about the same amount of energy whether their workload is low or high.”
Full story http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010100205149

Obama Bestows Highest Presidential Honor on Early Career Scientists and Engineers

2010-01-15T11:32:00.006-05:00

At the White House yesterday, President Barack Obama bestowed on 100 men and women the United States government's highest honor for scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers--the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Among the awardees, twenty were nominated by the National Science Foundation. These awardees come from universities around the country, and excel in research in a variety of scientific disciplines: biological sciences, computer and information science and engineering, education and human resources, engineering, geosciences, mathematical and physical sciences, and social, behavioral and economic sciences.

NSF PECASE awardees are drawn from a pool of individuals who have already been selected through rigorous peer review to receive five-year grants through the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. CAREER awardees are those who have proven themselves exemplary in integrating research and education within the context of the mission of their organization.

The NSF winners represent 16 institutions in 12 states. Three institutions have more than one winner: Rutgers has three, Pennsylvania State University and MIT have two each.

The Rutgers winners are:

Jimmy de la Torre - Department of Educational Psychology - Rutgers University
Charles R. Keeton II - Department of Physics and Astronomy - Rutgers
Hao Lin - Department of Aerospace Engineering - Rutgers University

NSF Press Release

Virtual reality tele-rehab improves hand function: Playing games for real recovery

2010-01-13T06:01:00.005-05:00

Remotely monitored in-home virtual reality videogames improved hand function and forearm bone health in teens with hemiplegic cerebral palsy, helping them perform activities of daily living such as eating, dressing, cooking, and other tasks for which two hands are needed.
While these initial encouraging results were in teens with limited hand and arm function due to perinatal brain injury, we suspect using these games could similarly benefit individuals with other illness that affect movement, such as multiple sclerosis, stroke, arthritis and even those with orthopedic injuries affecting the arm or hand,' said Meredith R. Golomb, M.D, M.Sc., Indiana University School of Medicine associate professor of neurology.

This project was done in collaboration with the Rutgers University Tele-Rehabilitation Institute, headed by Grigore Burdea, Ph.D., professor of electrical and computer engineering. The study appears in the January 2010 issue of Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.

Full Story: Science Daily

Three Rutgers Professors Named Fellows of Top National Science Association

2009-12-18T10:44:00.001-05:00

Three Rutgers scholars are among 531 scientists the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has elevated to the rank of fellow. The pre-eminent national scientific organization selects fellows based on their efforts in advancing science or fostering applications considered scientifically or socially distinguished.

Susan M. Cachel is an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, School of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the graduate interdisciplinary Quaternary Studies Program. She studies the origins of higher primates; the origins the human family (hominization); the origins of anatomically modern humans; and evolutionary processes such as speciation and extinction.
Lee Clarke is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, School of Arts and Sciences. Clarke works on problems concerning the environment, disaster, complex organizations and science.
James M. Tepper is a professor in the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers-Newark. His primary research interests center around understanding the functional organization of the basal ganglia, a group of interrelated subcortical nuclei in the brain that promote voluntary movement, certain types of learning as well as higher cognitive functions.

Joining the 40 previous Rutgers fellows, the new inductees will be presented with an official certificate and a gold rosette pin Saturday, Feb. 20, at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2009 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego.

Full Story

NEA announces grants to Rutgers and NJ

2009-12-10T10:48:00.001-05:00

Sixteen New Jersey organizations, including the state Council on the Arts, received $985,300 from the National Endowment for the Arts, part of $77.4 million in 1,014 grants the federal agency announced today.

The grants include $25,000 to Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Full Story

Glider Completes Historic Ocean Crossing: New Technology Advances Climate Understanding - 7thSpace Interactive

2009-12-10T10:45:00.000-05:00

The first-ever 7,300-mile Atlantic Ocean crossing by an unmanned underwater glider is opening up a new world of ocean technology. A ceremony on Dec. 9 in Baiona, Spain, will celebrate the partnership effort among the U.S. interagency Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) through Rutgers University, NOAA, Puertos Del Estado (Spanish Port Authority), the National Oceanographic Partnership Program, and other European partners.

Full Story

University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and Rutgers University Partner with BioImagene to Develop Companion Algorithms™ for Digital Pathology

2009-12-07T13:20:00.001-05:00

The Laboratory for Computational Imaging and Bioinformatics (LCIB) at Rutgers, Hospital at University of Pennsylvania, and the Digital Pathology company, Bioimagene, have just signed a 3 year sponsored research and licensing agreement to develop digital pathology image analysis algorithms for detection and grading of prostate cancer. Under this 3 year research agreement, Bioimagene will support Rutgers (PI: Anant Madabhushi) and UPENN (PI's: Michael Feldman, John Tomaszewski) with a $300,000 grant. Further, Bioimagene will sponsor a visiting scientist at LCIB and pathology fellow at UPENN, in addition to providing a commercial whole slide digital scanner and computational servers to the two academic institutions. Under this agreement, Bioimagene will license digital pathology algorithms developed at Rutgers and UPENN (Inventors: Anant Madabhushi, Scott Doyle, John Tomaszewski, Michael Feldman) for use in their commercial whole slide digital pathology scanners.

Full Story

New Sprayable Liquid Wound Dressing to Improve Care on the Battlefield

2009-11-27T17:49:00.002-05:00

Researchers are developing a new, sprayable liquid wound dressing technology that an injured warrior could apply one handed in a combat setting. The spray forms a tough hydrogel in seconds that conforms directly to the wound without sticking to it when removed.

The GelSprayTM Liquid Bandage was approved by the U.S. FDA for minor cuts and irritations in 2008, and its developers are preparing for a human clinical study required to extend the technology to battlefield care. The team is also working on variations that include medications to treat infection, speed healing and relieve pain.

Explains investigator Dr. Joachim Kohn of Rutgers University, “Because GelSpray conforms to the wound bed while in direct contact with the wound margins, it offers significant clinical advantages: The thick, protective film limits bleeding, absorbs wound fluids and directly transports medication to the entire wound bed. It does not significantly adhere to the wound bed—unlike most other dressings, where there is re-bleeding or delayed healing due to removal of granulation tissue whenever the wound dressing is removed.”

The GelSpray product for the far forward Soldier is designed for lacerations, small burns and gunshot and shrapnel wounds that are often on irregular surfaces such as the hand, face, neck and outer ear. It is meant to provide flexible protection that enables the Soldier to complete his or her mission.

Col. Dallas Hack, director of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command’s Combat Casualty Care Research Program, says, “This technology shows promise for quicker wound healing with less care needed. The dressing is breathable, and if it can include an antimicrobial to prevent infection, then we may not need to damage tissue further through debridement [removing dead or contaminated tissue].”

Kohn is the principal investigator of the Center for Military Biomaterials Research (CeMBR), a network of academic, industry and military organizations whose mission is to support wounded warriors on and off the battlefield with practical, leading edge innovations. He notes, “CeMBR partnered with BioCure, Inc., to develop the GelSpray technology. Under the leadership of BioCure co-investigator Sameer Shums, we have made significant progress.”

CeMBR research programs are supported and guided by USAMRMC’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center. “Feedback provided by TATRC’s national expert review panels has guided our product design efforts,” says Kohn. “TATRC and our program manager there, Wilbur Malloy, have provided us unwavering support.”

Kohn adds, “Our goal is to address the most critical needs of injured warriors for improved wound dressings. There is no other product that provides all these benefits and is specifically designed to meet military requirements.”

Rutgers VP of Research on the Impact of the Recovery Act

2009-11-17T18:25:00.003-05:00

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) headlined a Capitol Hill press conference on November 17 at which AAU, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and The Science Coalition announced the launch of ScienceWorksForUS, their joint initiative to inform the public of the benefits of the Recovery Act research investment. The focus of the project is a website (www.ScienceWorksForUS.org) that highlights Recovery Act-sponsored research in all 50 states.

Speaker Pelosi was joined at the press event by Representative Rush Holt (D-NJ), House Science and Technology Committee Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN), and Representatives Ed Markey (D-MA) and Bill Foster (D-IL), as well as University of Arizona President Robert Shelton. Also participating were University of Pennsylvania Vice Provost for Research Steven Fluharty, Rutgers Vice President for Research Michael Pazzani, Ohio State Vice President for Research Caroline C. Whitacre, and researchers from Princeton and Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Pazzani's remarks on the impact of the Recovery Act research investment are below:

I’d like to thank Speaker Pelosi, Rush Holt, other representatives, congress and the adminstration for making the recovery act possible.

The website Recovery.rutgers.edu lists all grants and cumulative dollars, stories, but I want to highlight a few projects and their impacts, starting with one of our smallest.

Professor Mark Gluck received a supplement to his existing NIH grant on Parkinson’s disease. This allowed him to hire two undergraduate honors students. In previous years, Rutgers students might have found part-time employments at Circuit City a company that was affected by economic downturn. In the short term, this grant provides students some funds for living expenses. The long-term impact may be more significant. Both students have decided to pursue graduate degrees adding to the talent base of the US. One of these students may very well find a cure for Parkinson’s disease.

Piotr Piotrowiak received an NSF instrumentation grant to develop an Ultrafast Fluorescence Microscope. This grant requires purchase of a state-of-the-art laser from a small company in Boulder, Colorado advancing reserach in New Jersey and helping a small company make a sale that otherwise would not have occured.

Danielle McCarthy, who received her Ph.D. in 2006, was awarded an NIH Challenge grant “Phenotypic Markers for Smoking Cessation: Impulsive Choice and Impulsive Action.” Over 20,000 proposals were submitted for this and fewer than 1000 have funded after a rigorous and very competitive review process. This competition in US system of funding research builds excellence and is the model being adopted by other countries. Rather than giving a block grant to Rutgers, funds were given to federal agencies where a merit review system selects the proposals with the greatest potential. We are grateful to the employees of NIH and NSF who had to lead the review of tens of thousands of additional proposals this year. I am pleased that the review process found merit in the proposal of an assistant professor rather than simply providing additional funds to already established senior researchers.

Professor Tamara Minko received a NIH award for “Targeted Proapoptotic Anticancer Drug Delivery System.” Today’s Anticancer Drugs are effective at killing cancer cells but also kill other cells in the body, resulting in side effects such as loss of hair and suppressed immune systems. With targeted delivery systems potent drugs can have an effect where needed with fewer side effects. Dr. Minko’s proposal was submitted last year to NIH as a five-year project, judged to be meritorious, but declined due to a lack of funds. The ARRA funds made it possible to get started on a two-year project on this important topic.

An NIH supplement was received by Dr. Richard Ebright of Rutgers Waksman institute, named after Selman Waksmans, the Rutgers faculty member that discovered streptomycin, the cure for tuberculosis. Dr. Ebright is working on new antibiotics that are effective against bacteria that have developed resistance to streptomycin and other antibiotics. He already has several promising leads.

In the short-term, the over 100 recovery act grants that Rutgers received are providing jobs on Rutgers campus for researchers and technicians and indirectly to companies that supply equipment and services to Rutgers. In the long-term, these grants are increasing the scientific and engineering talent and creating innovations that will lead to a robust economy in future decades.

Photo Credit: V. Hume, The Science Coalition

SUPERCONDUCTING NANOCIRCUITS FOR PROTECTED QUBITS

2009-10-29T05:33:00.002-04:00

The realization of quantum computers promises an enormous speed up in the solution of many important problems. Over the last decade, a very impressive progress has been made in the realization of solid-state quantum systems (both superconductor- and semiconductor-based) that can, potentially, operate as building blocks of a quantum computer (qubits). Scalability is an important advantage of these solid-state systems: they can be realized by conventional nanofabrication methods. However, the quantum states of these macroscopic systems are fragile: the state-of-the-art solid-state qubits strongly interact with uncontrollable degrees of freedom in their environment. The fast decoherence of the solid-state qubits remains the main roadblock on the path to a large-scale quantum computing.

At Rutgers, a novel approach to the protection of superconducting qubits has been proposed [1]. It is based on preventing qubit's errors at the "hardware" level, by building a fault-free logical qubit from "faulty" physical qubits with properly engineered interactions between them. Such interactions result in a highly-entangled collective state protected from all local noises. Recently, the first prototypes of topologically protected qubits made of nanoscale Josephson junctions have been developed and fabricated [2] at Rutgers. The proof-of-concept experiments with these prototype devices show that the nanocircuits are indeed protected against magnetic flux variations, in line with theoretical predictions.

This research, supported by NSF, DARPA and IARPA has strong potential for developing a fundamentally new class of superconducting logical elements of a quantum computer that would be protected from all sources of local noises.

The SEM image of a prototype of the topologically-protected qubit: an array of nanoscale Josephson junctions formed at intersections of aluminum strips.

1. L.B. Ioffe and M.V. Feigelman, Possible realization of an ideal quantum computer in Josephson junction array. Phys. Rev. B 66, 224503 (2002); Doucot, B., Feigelman, M.V., Ioffe, L.B., & Ioselevich, A.S. Protected qubits and Chern-Simons theories in Josephson junction arrays. Phys. Rev. B 71, 024505 (2005).

2. S. Gladchenko, D. Olaya, E. Dupont-Ferrier, B. Douçot, L.B. Ioffe, and M.E. Gershenson, Superconducting Nanocircuits for Topologically Protected Qubits, Nature Physics 5, 48-53 (2009).

Contact: Prof. Michael Gershenson Ph: 732-445-5500 ext. 3180, E-mail: gersh@physics.rutgers.edu

Prof. Lev Ioffe Ph. 732-445-5500 ext. 4605, E-mail: ioffe@physics.rutgers.edu

It's Funny Because It's True: Scientific American Podcast

2009-10-26T05:30:00.001-04:00

This month in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior Robert Lynch of Rutgers University published the first scientific evidence for the conventional folk wisdom: it’s funny because it’s true.

Full Story: Scientific American Podcast

Rutgers Professor Stacy Bonos receives early career award

2009-10-22T08:05:00.001-04:00

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Stacy Bonos, assistant professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, has been selected by the multi-state Plant Breeding Coordinating Committee (PBCC) to receive its inaugural Early Career Excellence in Plant Breeding Award. The award was announced at the annual scientific meeting of the PBCC on Aug. 4, 2009. As the award recipient, Bonos has been invited to present her research and anchor a roundtable discussion for graduate students at the 2010 meeting.

In her breeding research for turf and biofuels, Bonos uses diverse plant genetic resources to develop new plant types that are more tolerant of pests and poor or dry soils. Her varieties are robust without excessive use of pesticides, and require less fertilizer and water compared to earlier varieties. These are important advantages that give lawns and golf courses smaller environmental footprints. They also help make biofuel production more sustainable.

Full Story: Athletic Turf

REEF RECOVERY: Rutgers University Haskin Shellfish Laboratory

2009-10-18T06:56:00.004-04:00

New Jersey's oysters were long thought to be sextinguished by pollution and shellfish disease.

Now, restoration projects from Raritan Bay to the Delaware River offer tantalizing possibilities for a modest revival of some of the world's once famous — and now nearly forgotten — shellfish beds.

Recycling calcium shell from the offshore clam fishery looks like one way to reverse the collapse of East Coast oyster populations, and help them hold on against disease and climate change, says Eric Powell, a research scientist with the Rutgers University Haskin Shellfish Laboratory in Bivalve.

Full Story: Asbury Park Press

Rutgers physicists discover novel electronic properties in two-dimensional carbon structure

2009-10-16T07:04:00.003-04:00

Previously predicted but unobserved interactions between massless particles may lead to speedy, powerful electronic devices. Rutgers researchers have discovered novel electronic properties in two-dimensional sheets of carbon atoms called graphene that could one day be the heart of speedy and powerful electronic devices.

The new findings, previously considered possible by physicists but only now being seen in the laboratory, show that electrons in graphene can interact strongly with each other. The behavior is similar to superconductivity observed in some metals and complex materials, marked by the flow of electric current with no resistance and other unusual but potentially useful properties. In graphene, this behavior results in a new liquid-like phase of matter consisting of fractionally charged quasi-particles, in which charge is transported with no dissipation.

In a paper issued online by the prestigious science journal Nature and slated for print publication in the coming weeks, physics professor Eva Andrei and her Rutgers colleagues note that the strong interaction between electrons, also called correlated behavior, had not been observed in graphene in spite of many attempts to coax it out. This led some scientists to question whether correlated behavior could even be possible in graphene, where the electrons are massless (ultra-relativistic) particles like photons and neutrinos. In most materials, electrons are particles that have mass.

"Our work demonstrated that earlier failures to observe correlated behavior were not due to the physical nature of graphene," said Eva Andrei, physics professor in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences. "Rather, it was because of interference from the material which supported graphene samples and the type of electrical probes used to study it."

Andrei's collaborators were Xu Du, now on faculty at Stony Brook University; Ivan Skachko, a post-doctoral fellow; Fabian Duerr, a master's student; and Adina Luican, a doctoral student. The research was supported by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter and Alcatel-Lucent.

Full Story: Rutgers physicists discover novel electronic properties in two-dimensional carbon structure

Rutgers hopes to get $50M in stimulus money

2009-10-13T12:23:00.002-04:00

Colleges and universities around the country are getting a serious boost from federal stimulus money that has begun flowing for research and infrastructure improvements. Rutgers University has received 101 grants totaling $22 million, and more funds are expected. We talked to Michael J. Pazzani, vice president of research at Rutgers, about the windfall coming to New Jersey's state university.

Q. How much is expected for Rutgers from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act?
At this point I'm pretty confident saying we are going to expect $50 million. I think our faculty was pretty aggressive in writing grants. There is an off-chance we could even be up to $60 million or $70 million.

Full Story: Bergan Record

TAXIS Pharmaceuticals Licenses Novel Antimicrobial Technology from Rutgers and UMDNJ

2009-10-07T06:31:00.004-04:00

TAXIS Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (TAXIS), Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) have entered into an exclusive licensing agreement for worldwide rights to develop and commercialize a novel antimicrobial technology addressing multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial infections. The alarming rise in the number of multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacterial pathogens that have emerged and spread in recent years has dramatically reduced the utility of the current arsenal of antibiotics. Two such MDR pathogens in particular have been recognized as major threats to global public health, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). TAXIS is in the process of identifying and validating lead drug candidates that target MRSA and VRE with efficacies that are superior to current standards of therapeutic care.

"The compounds under investigation have great potential to treat a broad-spectrum of emerging, drug-resistant pathogens that represent large and growing public health and biodefense threats", said Gregory Mario, TAXIS' Chief Executive Officer. "We are excited to develop these further and move them closer to the clinic." The novel antimicrobial technology was discovered at the universities by Professors Daniel S. Pilch, Ph.D. (Department of Pharmacology, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School) and Edmond J. LaVoie, Ph.D. (Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Rutgers University-Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy).

About TAXIS Pharmaceuticals
TAXIS is a Delaware-based subchapter S corporation with operations in New Jersey that was formed in March of 2009 by the two scientific founders and the chief executive officer, Gregory G. Mario, MBA. TAXIS is focusing its current efforts on developing the azachryseniums (AZCs) as a novel class of bactericidal agents that can effectively treat infections caused by MDR bacterial pathogens For more information, please contact Gregory G. Mario: GMario@TAXISPharma.com

About Rutgers
Established in 1766, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is America's eighth oldest institution of higher learning and one of the nation's premier public research universities. Serving more than 50,000 students on campuses in Camden, Newark and New Brunswick, Rutgers offers more than 280 bachelor's, master's, doctoral and professional degree programs. The university is home to 27 degree-granting schools and colleges, and more than 150 specialized centers and institutes. Rutgers research budget of nearly $400MM in FY2009 reflects the depth and breadth of research disciplines, led by 30 members of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine at over 200 research institutes and centers. Building on the tradition of Nobel Laureate Selman Waksman who discovered streptomycin (and over a dozen other antibiotics), Rutgers continues to be a leader in technology discovery and commercialization. For more information, please contact Thomas Richardson: thomrich@otc.rutgers.edu

About UMDNJ
The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,900 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.

What the Stimulus Package Means for Rutgers

2009-10-01T06:11:00.001-04:00

September 29, 2009
by Joseph Blumberg

President Obama signs the economic stimulus package into law (ARRA), Denver, Colorado, February 17, 2009.

Rutgers is getting a serious financial boost from the federal stimulus package, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (AARA), which, President Obama says represents “a strategic and significant investment in our country’s future” in the face of an economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression.
Federal investment in the university’s people and programs will help produce important economic outcomes for the state and nation – through workforce development; research and development; technology commercialization; small business growth; policy analysis and forecasting; technical assistance; and low- and no-cost business, government, and human services.
Michael J. Pazzani, Vice President for Research and Graduate and Professional Education at Rutgers, said that as a public research university Rutgers is committed to exploring the frontiers of science, technology, and knowledge through its research programs.
The new dollars from the ARRA are particularly important to continuing this productive research – research that will ultimately improve the welfare, health, and quality of life of all people,” Pazzani said.

Full story: Rutgers Today

Rutgers Recovery Act Site

Life existed in oceans 200 million years before oxygen appeared

2009-09-18T20:22:00.002-04:00

Life existed in the oceans for hundreds of millions of years while the Earth's air was not fit to breathe, research suggested today. Dr Linda Godfrey and Dr Paul Falkowski, of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, found chemical evidence of nitrogen cycles that could not have taken place without the presence of free oxygen.

Nitrogen cycles relate to the way living things obtain and use nitrogen to produce complex organic molecules. Evidence of nitrogen cycles provides a 'fingerprint' of life. The researchers, concluded that organisms which produced oxygen as a by-product of photosynthesis must have evolved by around 2.5 billion years ago.

Full Story: Daily Mail

Rutgers-Camden is Birthplace for National Art Exhibit that Explores Women and Identity

2009-09-15T16:22:00.001-04:00

CAMDEN – From installations made out of hair combs and paper doilies that investigate cultural stereotypes and heritage to paintings and textiles that reveal women as super heroes, a new exhibit at the Rutgers–Camden Center for the Arts explores women and identity in contemporary art.

'Finding Home' by Siona Benjamin is part of the 'Complex Weave' exhibit at the Rutgers-Camden Stedman Gallery until Dec. 18.Now open to the public, “A Complex Weave: Women and Identity in Contemporary Art” will extend through Dec. 18 in the Stedman Gallery on the Rutgers–Camden Campus, which is the inaugural site for the exhibit’s national tour. This represents the first time that a prominent national art tour will originate from Rutgers–Camden."

Full Story: Rutgers-Camden is Birthplace for National Art Exhibit that Explores Women and Identity

Direct evidence of role of sleep in memory formation is uncovered

2009-09-15T07:11:00.000-04:00

A Rutgers University, Newark and College de France, Paris research team has pinpointed for the first time the mechanism that takes place during sleep that causes learning and memory formation to occur.

It's been known for more than a century that sleep somehow is important for learning and memory. Sigmund Freud further suspected that what we learned during the day was 'rehearsed' by the brain during dreaming, allowing memories to form. And while much recent research has focused on the correlative links between the hippocampus and memory consolidation, what had not been identified was the specific processes that cause long-term memories to form.

As posted online 11 September by Nature Neuroscience, Gyoergy Buzsaki, professor at the Centre for Molecular and Behavioural Neuroscience at Rutgers University, Newark, and his co-researchers, Gabrielle Girardeau, Karim Benchenane, Sidney I. Wiener and Michael B. Zugaro of the College de France, have determined that short transient brain events, called 'sharp wave ripples,' are responsible for consolidating memory and transferring the learned information from the hippocampus to the neocortex, where long-term memories are stored."

Full Story: Science Centric | Direct evidence of role of sleep in memory formation is uncovered

Startup SilaGene Aims to Develop U1 Adaptor Gene-Silencing Tech as Therapeutic Platform

2009-09-10T07:23:00.000-04:00

Aiming to explore the therapeutic potential of a novel gene-silencing method he developed, Rutgers University researcher Sam Gunderson has founded a small New Jersey-based startup, SilaGene, to conduct the proof-of-concept animal experiments necessary to show the technology works in vivo."

Full story: GenomeWeb:

NSF awards Rutgers $7.6 million for sustainable energy development, graduate education

2009-08-31T15:42:00.002-04:00

Fellowships address clean, renewable energy using biotechnology and nanotechnology; involve collaboration with institutions worldwide

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Rutgers University two grants worth $6.4 million to fund graduate research in clean and sustainable energy resources using biotechnology and nanotechnology. The foundation also has awarded the university up to $1.25 million to extend practices developed under earlier NSF graduate research grants. These will benefit Rutgers undergraduate and graduate students throughout the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.

The grants for clean and sustainable energy research are funded under the NSF's five-year Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program, which supports scientists and engineers pursuing doctorates in fields that cross academic disciplines and have broad societal impact. IGERT programs also involve collaboration with other institutions and support training for underrepresented minorities to enhance diversity in the science and engineering workforce.

Michael Pazzani, Vice president for Research and Graduate and Professional Education said the awards are the fifth and sixth IGERT grants NSF has awarded Rutgers over the past six years. "Rutgers is one of few universities to receive two IGERT grants in 2009," he said.

Nanotechnology for clean energy generation and storage:

Rutgers will collaborate with Princeton University to apply nanotechnology to clean energy generation and storage and conduct an educational exchange program between the U.S. and Africa. The grant is valued at up to $3.2 million over five years.

"Nanotechnology is a burgeoning field of science and engineering that involves materials and structures thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair," said Manish Chhowalla, professor of materials science and engineering and the grant's principal investigator. He added that nanotechnology can help boost the output and efficiency of solar cells, hydrogen fuel cells and batteries so they can provide clean and abundant energy for transportation, industries and homes.

Graduate students supported by IGERT fellowships will study policy and economic issues related to clean energy development through the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. Students will also participate in internships and exchanges with African universities and institutions through Princeton's US-Africa Materials Institute.

Renewable and sustainable fuels:

Rutgers will focus on replacing environmentally harmful fossil fuels with renewable, economically sustainable fuels in collaboration with universities in the U.S., Brazil, China and South Africa. The grant is valued at up to $3.2 million over five years.

"The development of biofuels and synfuels will require strategies adaptable to locations worldwide with diverse climates and geopolitical structures," said Eric Lam, the grant's principal investigator and director of the Rutgers Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment. Lam, who is also a professor of plant biology and pathology, said the program will prepare experts to shape America's future energy economy and policy by providing education in biotechnology, chemistry, ecology, engineering and energy policy along with real-world experience in government and industry.

Lam and his colleagues will collaborate with University of Puerto Rico and two historically black universities, Virginia Union University and Delaware State University. Extending ties established by the Rutgers Energy Institute, the project also will involve Peking University and Academia Sinica Guangxi in China; the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil; and, in South Africa, the University of the Witwatersrand.

Strengthening graduate study in science, technology, engineering, math:

The third grant is funded under a new NSF initiative to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. Rutgers will use the five-year NSF Innovation through Institutional Integration (I3) grant to extend its IGERT curricula and practices to other graduate programs and to undergraduate research supported by the Aresty Research Center for Undergraduates.

The I3 grant, valued at up to $1.25 million, will help Rutgers draw on the experience and practices of its four established IGERT programs to enhance all graduate programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Grant funding also will be used to prepare students for higher education through undergraduate research experiences and graduate school transition programs.

"Training a new generation of scientists is a widely recognized national need," said Philip Furmanski, the grant's principal investigator and executive vice president for Academic Affairs at Rutgers. "This grant will support a new Graduate Innovation and Integration Center that will address student preparedness for interdisciplinary endeavors while increasing diversity among our graduate student population."

The new center will support and draw upon existing programs that provide summer research experiences for undergraduates and that recruit and mentor students from diverse backgrounds

Contact: Carl Blesch
cblesch@ur.rutgers.edu
732-932-7084 x616
Rutgers University

Rutgers sets a new funding record for FY09: $391M

2009-08-24T16:31:00.004-04:00

Rutgers faculty have been awarded new grants and contracts of over $391M in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2009. In the prior year, a total of $327.2M in new awards were made. The largest increase was in grants from the federal government ($268.4M vs. $211.2M in the prior year). It is worth noting that this is not simply a case of a rising tide lifting all boats, but rather the innovative ideas of Rutgers faculty and the hard work of faculty and staff involved in proposal preparation. Only $3M of the increase in FY09 can be attributed to recovery act funds.

We do expect to see significant increases in FY10 due to the recovery act. FY10 is starting out as a very strong year with over $40M in new funding in July.

Some recent highlights include:

Rutgers has received two recovery act awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (PIs Ferris Olin and Nancy Maguire).·
Ten Rutgers faculty have been notified that they will receive NSF CAREER awards: Vitaly Podzorov, Weida Wu, Amelie Marian, Seongshik Oh, Marco Gruteser, Prosenjit Bagchi, David Shreiber, Saurabh Jha, Jian Song, and Myong K Jeong.·
Rutgers has been notified it will receive 5 US Department of Education Graduate Assistance for Areas of National Need awards. Only University of Chicago received more this year. Awards will be made to (1) Physics and Astronomy, (2) Chemistry and Chemical Biology, (3) BioMaps Institute for Quantitative Biology and Graduate Program in Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics, (4) Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, and (5) Mathematics.·
Rutgers is the only university to receive two IGERTS this year (PIs Eric Lam and Manish Chhowalla). Only 11 were awarded nationwide.
Rutgers will receive at least four NSF Major Research Instrumentation awards (PIs Robert Bartynski, Daniel Bubb, Daniel Murnick, and Piotr Piotrowiak).·
Rutgers has been awarded an NSF Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation grant to increase the numbers of minority students pursuing majors in science, technology, engineering and math (PI: Steve Diner).·
Rutgers has received supplements to existing awards that will give research experiences to over 35 undergraduate students. Although the money involved is relatively small, these research experiences can have a major impact on a student’s decision to pursue graduate education.

Note that although this good news for funded research, it does not make up for budget cuts in other areas since the grants are focused on specific projects.

Joanna Burger Receives American Ornithologists’ Union Brewster Medal for 2009

2009-08-18T06:05:00.007-04:00

Joanna Burger PhD, Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences at Rutgers University, was awarded the Brewster Medal by the American Ornithologists’ Union at its 127th annual meeting (August 15, 2009). The AOU is the largest international society devoted to all aspects of avian science. This is the highest medal of the society and is awarded for outstanding scientific research contributions to avian biology. The bronze medal is named after William Brewster, one of the AOU founders in 1883. Dr. Burger received the award for her extensive scientific contributions to behavior, ecology, and ecotoxicology, particularly of seabirds, and her mentorship of more than 50 graduates students. The long biographical citation ends:

The American Ornithologists Union honors Joanna Burger for her thorough and insightful body of work on seabird behavior and ecology. Through her commitment to excellence, exceptional dedication to ornithology, professionalism and work ethic for several decades she has served as a role model to many young women ornithologists and an inspiration to her colleagues. The American Ornithologists Union is proud to recognize Joanna Burger as a research scientist, teacher and mentor who continues to increase our knowledge of the natural history, behavior and ecology of birds.

NOAA award to Rutgers to support ocean observing in the mid-Atlantic

2009-08-12T11:48:00.000-04:00

NOAA's Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) has awarded more than $2.7 million in competitive grant funding to the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association, coordinated through the University of Delaware, in support of continued development of a comprehensive ocean observing system for the Mid-Atlantic region.

Over half of the funding will go to Rutgers University's Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, which will receive $1.7 million for continued development of the observing system components. Rutgers will focus on efforts to better coordinate and use data collected by underwater vehicles, buoys and other tools. This will help to monitor environmental conditions so decision-makers can minimize the impact of severe weather, natural hazards and other emergencies. Scott Glenn, Ph.D., of Rutgers Coastal Ocean Observation Lab will oversee the effort.

Full Story- NOAA announces funding to support ocean observing in the mid-Atlantic

Rutgers receives Five Department of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need awards

2009-07-28T09:49:00.007-04:00

Rutgers has received five grants for Ph.D. fellowships from the US Dept. of Education Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need or GAANN Program.

GAANN Grants will be awarded to the following departments:

1. Department of Physics and Astronomy – $174,208 for the period 08/15/2009 through 08/14/ 2010. This federal funding will provide for graduate fellowships to four graduate students over three years.

2. Rutgers Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology - $174,208. This proposed project will provide federal fellowship support for five students enrolled in the Doctoral Program in Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

3. BioMaps Institute for Quantitative Biology and Graduate Program in Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics - Computational Biology and Molecular Biophysics - $174,208 for the period 08/15/2009 through 08/14/2010. This grant will provide six graduate students the opportunity to pursue doctoral work in Computational Biology and Molecular Physics. The field of quantitative biology in an area of urgent national need arising out of the extensive and detailed biological information obtained through the use of the use of molecular and structural biology, especially the successes of genome sequencing and the field of proteomics, or the large-scale study of proteins. Particular effort will be devoted to recruiting and mentoring women and underrepresented minorities.

4. Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering in the School of Engineering - Pharmaceutical Engineering . This federal funding provides fellowships to four graduate students at the doctoral level that are enrolled full time to pursue a PH.D. In chemical engineering. New Jersey has the largest number of multinational pharmaceutical manufacturers in the nation. The proposed program will enhance the capacity for research in New Jersey and the nation by providing the U.S. pharmaceutical industries with skilled researchers needed for pharmaceutical product and process development and design.

5. Department of Mathematics. This proposed project will provide federal fellowship support for four students enrolled in the Doctoral Program in Mathematics . (PI: Michael Saks).

Teen girls build future careers in Rutgers engineering program

2009-07-28T07:52:00.003-04:00

The engineering class going on this summer on the third floor of the Allison Road classroom building on the Busch campus does not look like any other engineering class at Rutgers University.

In fact, it may not look like any other engineering class anywhere.

That is because everyone in the class is an adolescent girl.

This is not an actual college engineering class. The students are still in high school.

They are participating in a summerlong program called The Academy at Rutgers for Girls in Engineering and Technology or TARGET, designed to introduce girls as early as the sixth grade to engineering.

Full Story: Teen girls build future careers in Rutgers engineering program | mycentraljersey.com | MyCentralJersey.com

Where to Find a Multimillion-Dollar Business Idea - BusinessWeek

2009-07-25T06:25:00.001-04:00

By Richard Mammone

A breakthrough business idea often comes from outside. The successful entrepreneur is one who finds it, refines it, and makes a business plan.

Universities are a rich source of ideas. They spend years improving the principles that underlie many of the products and services currently on the market today. They also come up with new ideas that can create entirely new industries in the future. Universities spend nearly $50 billion every year in federal and state funds, corporate and privately sponsored research contracts, and other financial sources solely on university research projects, according to a 2007 survey by the Association of University Technology Managers. The Bayh-Dole Act, passed in 1980, encourages universities to patent and license new technologies to generate additional revenues for the university and also for the greater good of society by disseminating new useful products and services.

Full Story: BusinessWeek

Drilling for clues in ancient sediments about how sea-level changes will affect us

2009-07-14T07:11:00.002-04:00

The quest for answers starts with a 285-horsepower drilling rig that churns for hours on end, bringing up a variety of clues about past sea levels - evidence contained in fossils, in the chemistry of the water trapped in ancient sediment, and in the nature of the clay and sands themselves.

Kenneth G. Miller, a Rutgers University geologist, speaks loudly in order to be heard over the steady hum of the drill.

"This is what we think is going to be the home run for understanding how fast sea level can change in this area," he says of the project.

Full Story: Digging for answers | Philadelphia Inquirer | 07/13/2009

Rutgers Researchers Work to Rid New Brunswick of Bed Bugs

2009-07-09T13:08:00.002-04:00

New Brunswick, New Jersey, the home of Rutgers University, has the highest population density per square mile for rental housing in the country. With so many people living together in such close proximity to each other it gives one of the country’s worst pests an ideal environment to live and thrive. This pest is bed bugs, the tiny insects that infest beds, couches and other furniture commonly used by humans. Dr. Changlu Wang, an entomology researcher at Rutgers, says that bed bug infestation has increased rapidly since he began doing his research, in 2005. In one high-rise apartment building he studied, infestations increased from 1 to 87 in a 26 month span. He attributes this to the high number of people living in such close quarters.

“Many families are low-income families living in multi-family houses. They don’t have the resources to properly clean their living quarters, which gives these pests the opportunity to spread from one bed to another,” says Wang.

Bed bugs feed off of human blood, much like leeches. They like to live in places where humans spend most of their time, namely beds and couches. They are not known to carry diseases, but they do cause significant physical and psychological harm. Bed bugs are so small that most people can’t feel when they are being bitten. They go on sleeping but in the morning they are covered in hundreds or even thousands of irritating sores. These pests also cause an economic loss because most families simply throw out infected furniture rather than spend the money to have exterminators called.

Most bed bug extermination techniques are chemical based. The most common chemical used is called pyiethroid which is very effective at exterminating pests, but is also very dangerous to humans. When chemical methods are used people typically cannot reenter the room or house for 24-48 hours, depending on the strength used. This is very inconvenient for families that are already crammed together in a tiny apartment.

Fortunately Dr. Wang and his colleagues have developed a different method for controlling these pests that does not use dangerous chemicals. They are experimenting with a device called an Interceptor that is effective at not only monitoring bed bug numbers, but exterminating them as well.

The device is made of two plastic bowls, one inside the other, that are placed underneath the legs of furniture. The bowls are filled with two different types of powders that are lethal to bed bugs. The small inner bowl is filled with diatomaceous earth and talcum powder, while the outer bowl is filled with ethylene glycol. Once placed underneath the legs the furniture is pushed away from walls and curtains so that bed bugs must crawl into the bowls to get on the furniture. The bugs get trapped in the bowls as they cannot climb up the smooth plastic walls and eventually die.

Dr. Wang and his team installed these Interceptors in thirteen bug-infested apartments in New Brunswick to test their effectiveness. After 10 weeks of monitoring these devices the researchers collected 1,103 dead bed bugs trapped in the bowls. Of the residents interviewed only 4 out of 10 complained of having bed bugs, yet the Interceptors and visual inspections found that every apartment had an infestation of some kind.

“We were very happy with the results of the testing and found that these devices were effective at monitoring and exterminating bed bugs. However the numbers that were killed were not close to those of traditional extermination methods. The Interceptors provide families with a safe and effective alternate to chemicals but they won’t completely eradicate the problem,” says Wang.

This is still an experimental form of extermination and needs some fine tuning in order to be commercially viable. But in a highly populated area like New Brunswick it can be an effective method.

“This research is very important because bed bugs cause people a lot of pain and discomfort,” says Wang.

“If we can find a way to eliminate these pests we can help give people peace of mind and save them money.”

New Findings On Parkinson's Disease And Effect On Patient Behavior

2009-07-02T10:28:00.002-04:00

A new neuropsychological memory test is helping to uncover how Parkinson's disease can alter people's ability to learn about the consequences of the choices they make. The test was developed by Dr. Mark Gluck, professor of neuroscience at the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers University, Newark, working with co-researchers at Rutgers, New York University, and in Hungary.

Full Story: New Findings On Parkinson's Disease And Effect On Patient Behavior

Rutgers researchers have discovered a potential new way to treat childhood epilepsy using a widely available therapeutic drug.

2009-06-15T13:57:00.000-04:00

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – Rutgers researchers have discovered a potential new way to treat childhood epilepsy using a widely available therapeutic drug.

Rutgers neuroscientist Gabriella D’Arcangelo and her colleagues have published their research findings in the journal Disease Models and Mechanisms.

In their quest for new therapeutic approaches, the researchers are investigating the molecular basis of the disease. The article describes the first use of a mouse model of cortical dysplasia, a malformation of the brain that is most often the cause of childhood epilepsy. Introducing the drug rapamycin, originally used to prevent rejection in organ transplants, suppressed epileptic seizures in the mice

Full Story:Media-Newswire.com - Press Release

Rutgers Uses Robot Sub to Interest Students in Marine Sciences

2009-05-05T13:06:00.004-04:00

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Two Rutgers University students and prospective oceanographers, Emily Rogalsky and Dave Kaminsky, were scanning computer screens showing digital maps of the waters off the coast of New Jersey, tracking the progress of RU27, or the “Scarlet Knight.”

David Aragon, a marine technician, wrestled the Scarlet Knight into place last week before launching it toward Spain.
Scarlet is a submersible glider, an unmanned underwater robot shaped something like a miniature jetliner, that was launched from Tuckerton, N.J., in Ocean County, last Monday by students and faculty members in Rutgers’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. If all goes according to plan, the glider will reach Spain in about nine months, collecting information about the Atlantic Ocean along the way.

Full Story: New York Times

Rutgers Historian T. J. Jackson Lears and Philosopher Stephen Stich Elected Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

2009-04-21T06:37:00.002-04:00

Two Rutgers scholars, historian T.J. Jackson Lears and philosopher Stephen Stich, have been elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the nation’s pre-eminent learned society and research institution.

Full Story: Rutgers Historian T. J. Jackson Lears, Philosopher Stephen Stich Elected Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Rutgers Professor Annette Gordon-Reed Receives 2009 Pultizer Prize in History

2009-04-21T06:33:00.001-04:00

Rutgers University History Professor Annette Gordon-Reed has been awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in history for her landmark work, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W. W. Norton, 2008). The award was announced this afternoon by the Pulitzer board. In its citation, the board praised The Hemingses of Monticello as “a painstaking exploration of a sprawling multi-generation slave family that casts provocative new light on the relationship between Sally Hemings and her master, Thomas Jefferson.

Rutgers' Jefferson expert wins a Pulitzer - NJ.com

Rutgers Press Release

Rutgers, named as Data Sciences Lead Institution for the DHS Center of Excellence for Command, Control and Interoperability

2009-04-01T08:57:00.000-04:00

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has selected Rutgers University as the co-lead for a new DHS Center of Excellence to conduct research into the technological issues involved with maintaining homeland security.

Rutgers and its co-lead, Purdue University, will together receive up to $5 million per year over a period of six years, for an anticipated total of as much as $30 million.

The center is formally known as the DHS Center of Excellence for Command, Control, and Interoperability (CCI). It will conduct research and develop technologies, tools and advanced methods for information analysis, situational awareness, decision support, information sharing and cyber infrastructure protection.

Rutgers will be the lead institution for research in the data sciences, and Purdue will be the lead for research in the visualization sciences. Leading the Rutgers effort is the university’s Center for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science (DIMACS).

"Homeland Security’s selection of Rutgers for the new grant was the result of an intensive competition and evaluation process.” said Fred Roberts, professor of mathematics, head of DIMACS and the Rutgers principal investigator for the CCI Center of Excellence. “It speaks to our expertise in critical, multidisciplinary areas of research and to our innovative educational programs.”

Roberts noted that Rutgers will lead a team of partner institutions participating in the new center’s data analysis activities.

DAAS Notice Designating Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, as Data Sciences Lead Institution for the DHS Center of Excellence for Command, Control and Interoperability

Rutgers gets homeland security research grant | Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/01/2009

AIDS Vaccine Gets Closer: Targeting Virus' Achilles Heel

2009-03-12T19:04:00.000-04:00

Rutgers AIDS researchers Gail Ferstandig Arnold and Eddy Arnold may have turned a corner in their search for a HIV vaccine. In a paper just published in the Journal of Virology, the husband and wife duo and their colleagues report on their research progress.

With the support of the National Institutes of Health, the Arnolds and their team have been able to take a piece of HIV that is involved with helping the virus enter cells, put it on the surface of a common cold virus, and then immunize animals with it. They found that the animals made antibodies that can stop an unusually diverse set of HIV isolates or varieties.

Full Story: AIDS Vaccine Gets Closer: Targeting Virus' Achilles Heel

Footprints offer clue on path to modern man

2009-02-27T06:42:00.001-05:00

One and a half million years ago, a few of our ancestors walked beside a muddy African river with powerful, modern strides - a gait that let them forage over long distances, paving the way for evolutionary advances that make us human.

The evidence, reported by a team that included Rutgers University in today's issue of the journal Science, comes from the rarest of anthropological discoveries - their footprints.

Among those who helped uncover the tracks, preserved for the ages when a gently flowing river changed course and covered them with sand, were Rutgers undergraduates. Supervised by scientists, they used brushes to clear away sand bit by bit, retreating to their tents at night after days under the merciless Kenyan sun.

"You realize these are made by our human ancestors," marveled Andrew Du, now a senior at the school's New Brunswick campus. "It's a pretty surreal experience."

Philadelphia Inquirer: Full Story

New York Times: Full Story

Joanna Burger, James E. Katz, and Alan Robock selected as AAAS Fellows

2009-02-13T11:07:00.000-05:00

Congratulations to Joanna Burger, James E. Katz, and Alan Robock, new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Joanna Burger is a professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience, Division of Life Sciences, School of Arts and Sciences, and is also affiliated with the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute. Burger's primary interests are in the adaptive significance of social behavior in vertebrates, the effects of incubation temperature on behavioral development, the effects of heavy metals on neurobehavioral development and ecological risk. Burger was cited for "distinguished contributions to the field of metals in environmental risk assessment and for her role as a model for women scientists."

James E. Katz is chair of the Department of Communication in the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies where he also directs the Center for Mobile Communication Studies. His focus is on how personal communication technologies, such as mobile phones and the Internet, affect social relationships and how cultural values influence usage patterns of these technologies. Katz was cited for "distinguished scholarly contributions regarding the social dimensions of technology, including communications technology, and for contributions to public understanding of those dimensions."

Alan Robock is a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences, the associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction, and a participant in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The panel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. His research, which involves many aspects of climate changes, encompasses both observational analyses and climate model simulations. Robock was cited for "innovative research on climate with links to volcanoes, smoke, soil moisture and ice, and for models of nuclear winter that helped make nuclear war unthinkable."

Source: http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/news-releases/2008/12/three-rutgers-profes-20081210

A New Gene Silencing Platform-Silence is Golden

2009-02-08T10:00:00.003-05:00

Findings may lead to novel treatments for diseases refractory to current state-of-the-art RNAi

February 8, 2009
EDITOR'S NOTE: For more information, contact Samuel Gunderson, PhD at gunderson@biology.rutgers.edu; For licensing inquiries, contact Thomas Richardson, PhD, Office of Technology Commercialization, at richardson@ocltt.rutgers.edu

A team of researchers, led by Rutgers University Professor Samuel Gunderson, has developed a novel gene silencing platform with very significant improvements over existing RNAi approaches. This may enable the development and discovery of a new class of drugs to treat a wide array of diseases. The research findings are reported in the journal Nature Biotechnology, published online in the February 8^th issue.

Critical to the technology is the approach this team took to specifically target RNA biosynthesis. Dr. Gunderson created highly efficient silencing agents that function via a novel mechanism of action. The agents are single-stranded oligonucleotides, called U1 Adaptors, that have dual, and independent, functions. First is a target-gene binding domain that can be tailored to any gene. The second domain inhibits mRNA maturation by binding U1 snRNP, a component of the cellular splicing apparatus. By combining both capabilities in the same molecule, the U1 Adaptor can inhibit the pre-mRNA maturation step of polyA tail addition in a gene specific manner. Further, the domains of the oligonucleotide are independent so transcript binding and U1 snRNP binding can be independently optimized and adapted to a wide array of genes associated with disease.

Dr. Gunderson explained, “The U1 Adaptor platform expands on early technologies that used 5'-end-mutated U1 snRNA expressed off of a plasmid as the inhibitory molecule that gave inhibition levels hundreds-of-fold higher than comparable approaches. The U1 Adaptor is an oligonucleotide version of this older method and it targets the 3' end processing step. U1 Adaptors also have high synergistic activity both when used alone and when used with RNAi. The range of possible targets is very broad due to the mechanism of action in which inhibition occurs during the biosynthesis of mRNA at the near universal 3' end processing step. Since we addressed the problem mechanistically, it is possible that we can use U1 Adaptors in combination with other methods as well. But I think one of the most interesting aspects of this technology is that U1 Adaptors can possibly inhibit genes that are refractory to current RNAi methods.”

The applications of U1 Adaptors expand on those currently available using standard RNAi approaches. They can be used as a research tool to determine gene function and to validate gene targets. Gene silencing molecules also have potential prophylactic and therapeutic applications based upon ongoing clinical trials using RNAi and traditional antisense approaches. For some genes that cause disease, these other approaches may not be effective enough and so U1 Adaptors, may provide a novel solution.

Dr. Gunderson is an Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Members of the team include Dr. Gunderson's associate and lead author, Dr. Rafal Goraczniak, and Dr. Mark A. Behlke of IDT Corporation (Iowa).

Rutgers has filed a patent application that claims compositions and methods for modulating gene expression and is seeking commercialization partners.
Gene Silencing Platform with U1 Adaptor Oligonucleotides for additional details

Rutgers Licensee Axion International Announces Contract from Major US Railway

2009-02-04T04:47:00.003-05:00

Order Provides Further Validation of Axion’s Green Structural Products Technology and Market Acceptance

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., January 30,2009 -- Axion International Holdings, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: AXIH - News), a green industrial technology company that develops premium, cost-effective structural building products from recycled consumer and industrial plastics, today announced the receipt of an order for crossties from a major US railroad company valued at approximately $560,000.

Upon completion of this contract, the customer has the potential to place further and larger orders. All contracted products for American commercial customers will be manufactured solely in the United States.

“This order represents more than simply an important business opportunity for Axion,” said James Kerstein, Chief Executive Officer. “Over and above the significant initial revenue generated and the potential for future, larger orders, the stature of this client provides major validation for our green structural products as well as providing leverage opportunities for expanded business throughout the entire rail and transportation infrastructure sectors.”

Mr. Kerstein further stated, “As evidenced by this latest order and by the bridges we are constructing for the US Army, our superior products offer higher quality structural solutions to specific projects than the traditional building technologies currently available, and do so in a manner that is both economically competitive and eco-friendly.”

As previously announced, the US Army has awarded Axion a multi-bridge contract representing a value of approximately $800,000. Utilizing Axion’s patented blend of recycled composite materials, the 50-foot plus structures will handle loads of 70 tons, with each replacing a wood bridge with only a 6-ton rating. According to a study conducted by The US Army Corps of Engineers, a similar bridge built using Axion’s formulations more than 10 years ago at Fort Leonard Wood has required virtually no maintenance and retains its as-new appearance.

About Axion International
Axion International is a leading structural solution provider of cost-effective alternative infrastructure and building products. The Company’s "green" proprietary technologies allow for the development and manufacture of innovative structural products made from 100% recycled consumer and industrial plastics. Axion's up-cycled products are an economic and sustainable alternative to traditional building materials such as wood, steel or concrete. Developed in collaboration with scientists at Rutgers University, Axion's patented technologies allow for products that are extremely strong, durable, flexible in design, and low maintenance.
For more information, please visit: www.axionintl.com

Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains "forward-looking statements" for purposes of the Securities and Exchange Commission's "safe harbor" provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause Axion’s actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated, including the risk factors identified in Axion’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Company Contact
Axion International Holdings
Chief Executive Officer
James Kerstein
(908)-542-0888
kersteinj@axionintl.com

Financial Communications Contact
Trilogy Capital Partners
Darren Minton, Vice President
Toll-free: 800-592-6067
info@trilogy-capital.com

Rutgers Cognitive Scientists Find Humans And Mice Equally Adept At Assessing Risk

2009-02-03T08:50:00.000-05:00

Humans and mice are both good at assessing risk in everyday tasks, according to a study by Rutgers University scientists published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Fuat Balci, David Freestone and Charles R. Gallistel, report that when it comes to figuring out in a few seconds which of two locations is the best place to be to collect a reward, mice and humans are about equally proficient.

The finding leads Gallistel, professor of psychology and co-director of the Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, to conclude that risk assessment is not basically a high-level conscious activity, but one that is programmed into the brains of animals - mice, humans and many others.

Medical News Today News Article

Rutgers Scientists Sequence Genome Of Biofuel Crop Sorghum

2009-01-29T08:30:00.005-05:00

Researchers at Rutgers University have deciphered the genetic make-up of sorghum, a drought-tolerant crop and important food and biofuel source. Scientists believe such a breakthrough could eventually help produce better food crops for arid regions with rapidly expanding human populations, such as West Africa. Capable of thriving in hot and dry conditions, sorghum is one of the world's leading cereals, along with corn, wheat, oats and barley. The plant’s genome, which includes about 30,000 genes, was mapped entirely by an international scientific team that published the finding in the journal Nature on Wednesday.

Full Story: Scientists Sequence Genome Of Biofuel Crop Sorghum

TIME Interviews Rutgers' Alan Robock about Regional Nuclear War and the Environment

2009-01-28T07:15:00.000-05:00

See Time Magazine: Why Nuclear Weapons Are (Still) Bad for the Planet

New Jersey-Based Biotech Start-Up Nexomics Biosciences Gets Off the Ground

2009-01-21T07:23:00.001-05:00

Nexomics Biosciences Inc., a recently-formed, New Jersey-based biotechnology company, applies cutting edge platform technologies based on large scale protein production, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), and X-ray crystallography for use in drug discovery efforts. Nexomics Biosciences has signed a comprehensive license agreement with Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, that provides Nexomics rights to a portfolio of intellectual property. An additional agreement has been announced with the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine that provides Nexomics access to laboratory space and equipment.

"Together with Prof. Gaetano Monteleone and co-founder Dr. Michael Baran, Rutgers is very excited to create Nexomics as a tool for commercializing promising technologies out of Prof. Monteleone's lab" said Dr. Michael Pazzani, Rutgers' V.P. of Research and Graduate and Professional Education. Dr. Pazzani further added "The unique and highly-regarded expertise of Nexomics' founders, as well as the company's strategy of providing drug discovery services to biotech and pharma companies while developing its own IP and drug candidates, bode well for a successful commercial effort."

Full Story: New Jersey-Based Biotech Start-Up Nexomics Biosciences Gets Off the Ground

Nexomics website

Rachel Jones of Rutgers College of Nursing Receives $2 million NIH Grant to Reduce HIV Risk

2009-01-11T07:48:00.002-05:00

Rachel Jones, Rutgers College of Nursing Faculty Member, Receives $2 million Grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research to Study Soap Opera Videos Delivered on Cell Phones to Reduce HIV Risk in Urban Women

The Associated Press: Cell phone soap operas deliver safe-sex message

Rutgers Press Release

New NSF Industry University Center for Integration of Composites into Infrastructure

2008-12-04T11:41:00.001-05:00

Led by Professor Perumalsamy Balaguru of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rutgers is establishing an New NSF Industry University Center for Integration of Composites into Infrastructure (CICI) for the utilization of inorganic polymer system for infrastructure applications. The primary objective for these NSF centers is to improve the international compositeness of the American Industry. The vision of the new center is to create innovative composite products for enhancing the performance of existing applications and develop new application areas.

The primary themes of the new center are to create sustainable building materials and systems including increasing the life of the existing structures. For example one of the projects will focus on using waste lumber products to manufacture fire resistant structural components. In the area of increasing the life of existing structures, one of the themes is to develop a ceramic coating that can be applied to existing infrastructures to reduce the degradation.

An inorganic polymer system that was developed at Rutgers for aircraft structures was used to create a unique coating system that is compatible with common construction materials. The coating material that looks and behaves like a standard paint, is compatible with common construction materials such as: clay bricks, concrete, steel and timber. Fillers, pigments and hardening agents can be added to the powder component. The most unique properties of the coating are: self-cleaning and de-pollution characteristics. Self-cleaning properties is shown in below. The coating that was applied to bridge abutment wall clearly shows that the coating stays clean. The green mold can be seen on the uncoated surface.

Common application procedures such as brushing and spraying can be used for coating and strengthening of infrastructures. The product was successfully used for strengthening and for protective coating of bridge substructures in Maryland, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

The matrix can withstand temperatures up to 1000˚C, and is not affected by UV radiation. Fire tests show that the flame-spread index is zero. The matrix is water based; consequently tools and spills can be cleaned with water. All of the components are nontoxic and no fumes are emitted during mixing or curing.The base coating material is white and hence other color schemes can be easily formulated using pigments. Various color schemes, including concrete and brick color coatings have been successfully developed.

The latest application of the coating was carried out at: Route 280 at Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. The pre-cast wall was 650 feet long with an average height of 10 feet. The surface of the wall was in good condition. The coating system was engineered using pigments to obtain color schemes needed for the application.

William Pottenger's data mining research featured at NSF

2008-12-03T21:02:00.000-05:00

Rutgers researchers have created data mining tools that stop criminals while protecting civil liberties.

nsf.gov - National Science Foundation (NSF) Discoveries - Offering New HOPE in the Balance Of Security and Civil Liberties - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

Development Of New Cranberry Helps Growers Increase Production

2008-11-27T20:17:00.000-05:00

Working at the university’s Marucci Blueberry-Cranberry Research Center in Chatsworth, Nick Vorsa led an effort to develop a cranberry plant that delivered higher yields, ripened earlier in the season, and had vines that grew faster and resisted weeds and disease better than previous varieties. Until now, growers cultivated selections from wild bogs or relied on first-generation hybrids from the 1940s and 1950s that provided little genetic improvement.

The higher yields from Vorsa’s new hybrid, named Crimson Queen, mean that fewer new acres of environmentally sensitive wetlands have to be developed to meet increased demand. The earlier ripening helps growers get their product to market in time for the annual Thanksgiving feast.

The faster growing plants help growers by producing fruit in newly planted or renovated fields a full year earlier. Cranberry beds planted with Crimson Queen hybrids come into full production in three to four years, versus the four to five years of traditional varietals. The hybrid’s hardiness reduces the need for herbicides and pesticides, cutting costs and reducing environmental harm.

Vorsa received a patent for the Crimson Queen hybrid in 2007. Rutgers licensed the hybrid and two companion varieties to more than 40 grower-members of the Ocean Spray cooperative. Rutgers began receiving royalties on its patent this year.

Earlier this month, the Research and Development Council of New Jersey awarded Vorsa a 2008 Thomas Alva Edison patent award. The Council issues these awards annually to recognize New Jersey inventions in business categories that benefit the state’s economy, including agriculture.

Favorite Holiday Dish Gets 'Upscale' Breeding

Cranberries get a big boost - NJ.com

Information on Licensing Rutgers Cranberry Varieties

Rutgers University History professor Clement Price to examine the National Endowment for the Humanities

2008-11-17T21:13:00.000-05:00

Rutgers History Professor Appointed to Prominent Transition Post by President-Elect Barack Obama

Joachim Kohn Testifies at Congressional Hearing on Impact of NIH Funding

2008-11-13T20:45:00.000-05:00

Joachim Kohn, Board of Governors Professor of Chemistry at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey and Director of the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials, describes the economic value to the nation of investment in the National Institutes of Health via four mechanisms:

1. The immediate (direct) stimulatory effect of a cash infusion into the research community and its local economy;
2. the (indirect) ripple effect of growth opportunities for universities, medical centers, and local companies;
3. the long term economic benefits relating to the leverage of the original NIH investment by private sector funds aimed at the translation of NIH inventions into medically useful products, services and new therapies; and
4. the health dividend derived from the clinical use of the new products and services.

NIH investment of $4.5 MM in the Kohn laboratory has so far generated $132 MM of private venture investment in four companies that are developing implantable medical products using innovative biomaterials invented under NIH support at Rutgers. Two products developed by TyRx Pharma, Inc. are in clinical use to reduce infection following hernia repair operations and implantation of cardiac rhythm medical devices. A revolutionary coronary stent developed by REVA Medical Inc is in clinical trials in Germany and Brazil with the expectation to start clinical trials in the US sometime in 2009. Clinical trials by Lux Biosciences are also underway for ophthalmic drug therapies targeting major diseases of the eye, such as "dry eye syndrome", uveitis, and (age related) macular degeneration.

In summary, these economic activities created high paying jobs, provided a 29-fold leverage of government funding by private funding, and promise to yield significant reductions in our national health care costs.

Professor Kohn stated his firm conviction that increasing the NIH budget, whether in a near-term stimulus package or in future funding bills will pay off both now and in the long run.

Full Testimony (PDF)

NIH awards Rutgers Cell and DNA Repository $57.8M. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News - Biotechnology from Bench to Business

2008-10-27T15:10:00.000-04:00

The Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) has received two major awards worth more than $57.8 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). One will fund genetic studies of mental disorders and the other will support investigations into the causes of digestive, liver and kidney diseases, and diabetes.

"Both awards were the result of a competitive selection process that considered the scientific merit of the proposals and the past experience of the RUCDR," said principal investigator Jay A. Tischfield, Duncan and Nancy Macmillan Professor and Chair of the Department of Genetics.

Full Story: News: NIH awards Rutgers Cell and DNA Repository $57.8M. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News - Biotechnology from Bench to Business

Rutgers University Cell and DNA Repository (RUCDR) Website.

Time Magazine: A New Class of Antibiotics Could Offer Hope Against TB

2008-10-17T08:26:00.000-04:00

Eighty years after the discovery of penicillin, researchers say they are on the verge of developing a new class of antibiotics.

Publishing in the Oct. 17 issue of the journal Cell, scientists at Rutgers University describe a group of antibiotic compounds, first isolated decades ago from naturally occurring antibacterial substances in soil. Among them, researchers say, is a compound called myxopyronin that shows great promise. It has been synthesized in the lab and shown to be safe in animal trials, and although the drug hasn't been tested in humans yet, cell-based experiments suggest that it is potent enough to kill a wide range of stubborn bugs, including drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis and the deadly type of staph known as MRSA.

Full Story: A New Class of Antibiotics Could Offer Hope Against TB

Certain commonly available skin creams may cause skin tumors

2008-08-14T20:46:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Certain commonly available skin creams may cause skin tumors, at least in mice, and experts should be checking to see if they might cause growths in people as well, researchers reported on Thursday.

Allan Conney and colleagues at Rutgers University in New Jersey said they discovered the risk while testing a theory that caffeine could prevent skin cancer.

"We sort of got into this by accident," Conney said in a telephone interview. "We wanted a safe cream that we could put the caffeine into.:

Reuters: Skin creams cause tumors on mice, study shows

Rutgers Awarded Federal Highway Administration Bridge Performance Program Contract of $25.5 Million

2008-04-23T14:45:00.000-04:00

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has awarded the Rutgers Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT), as prime contractor, a competitive five-year contract worth up to $25.5 million for the FHWA Long-Term Bridge Performance (LTBP) program. The LTBP program is envisioned as a 20-year research study to expand quality information available on bridge performance in order to help bridge and highway managers make better decisions. This study will be the first to collect uniform bridge performance data at the national level.

Full Story: Rutgers Research Team Awarded Federal Highway Administration Bridge Performance Program Contract Worth up to $25.5 Million

Protein Data Bank Archives 50,000th Molecule Structure

2008-04-11T14:32:00.000-04:00

ScienceDaily (Apr. 11, 2008) — The Protein Data Bank (PDB) based at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and the University of California-San Diego (UCSD) this month reached a significant milestone in its 37-year history. The 50,000th molecule structure was released into its archive, joining other structures vital to pharmacology, bioinformatics and education.

"Advances in science and technology have helped the archive grow by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years," said Helen M. Berman, director of the RCSB PDB and Rutgers Board of Governors professor of chemistry and chemical biology, noting that the size of the PDB has doubled in just the last three and a half years.

The RCSB PDB presents a comprehensive website and database that lets users search, analyze and visualize the structures of biological macromolecules and their relationships to sequence, function and disease.

Full Article: Protein Data Bank Archives 50,000th Molecule Structure

Protein Data Bank Website

Rutgers Wireless Networking Laboratory Awarded Alexander Schwarzkopf Prize for Technological Innovation - US National Science Foundation

2008-01-14T21:54:00.000-05:00

A research team at the Rutgers Wireless Information Networking Laboratory (WINLAB) today received the fourth annual Alexander Schwarzkopf Prize for Technological innovation from the I/UCRC Association, a voluntary, independent organization of past and present members of the National Science Foundation's Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) program.

The award, named for the founder of the I/UCRC program, recognizes Rutgers for establishing a unique facility for testing new mobile computing and communications technologies. The facility, known as the ORBIT Open Access Radio Grid Testbed, eatures a 400-node programmable radio transceiver emulation laboratory and an outdoor field trial system of short- and long-range radios on the university's New Brunswick Campus.

The ORBIT facility, funded by a $5.45 milion, four-year National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, is the world's largest open, programmable wireless network facility for use by academic and industry researchers worldwide. ORBIT is also being used as a proof-of-concept prototyping platform for wireless aspects of GENI, the future $300 million Internet research infrastructure being planned by the U.S. networking research community. In addition, it has been selected as the experimental wireless networking platform of choice for key future Internet projects in Europe.

ORBIT represents an important contribution to the nation's wireless infrastructure," said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, director of WINLAB and a principal investigator of the NSF ORBIT project. "WINLAB's unique wireless technology development and technology transfer capabilities that made a complex project like ORBIT possible were originally nurtured by Schwarzkopf's NSF I/UCRC program."

Full Story: nsf.gov - Engineering (ENG) News - Rutgers Wireless Networking Laboratory Awarded Alexander Schwarzkopf Prize for Technological Innovation - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

Rutgers Wireless Information Networking Laboratory (WINLAB) Website

Eight-million-year-old bug is alive and growing - environment - 07 August 2007 - New Scientist

2007-08-07T15:34:00.000-04:00

Kay Bidle of Rutgers University in New Jersey, US, and his colleagues extracted DNA and bacteria from ice found between 3 and 5 metres beneath the surface of a glacier in the Beacon and Mullins valleys of Antarctica. The ice gets older as it flows down the valleys and the researchers took five samples that were between 100,000 and 8 million years old.

Eight-million-year-old bug is alive and growing - environment - 07 August 2007 - New Scientist

National Academy of Sciences elects 2 Rutgers professors

2007-05-02T16:35:00.000-04:00

Hugo Dooner is a renowned plant geneticist -- Paul Falkowski is a prominent biological oceanographer
Full Story: National Academy of Sciences elects 2 Rutgers professors

Army Funds New Research Institute to Help Wounded

2007-04-17T15:32:00.000-04:00

A group of universities and medical centers will receive $85 million from the U.S. Army to research the use of stem cells and other biotechnology to treat soldiers maimed by explosions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine will receive $85 million to develop therapies to help repair and replace damaged tissues and organs, Lieutenant General Eric Schoomaker, the Army's surgeon general, said today at a Defense Department press conference.

The institute will be based at existing universities, leaving the money for research, said Joachim Kohn, a professor of chemical biology and chemistry at Rutgers University, the state university of New Jersey, which will lead one of two groups of universities and medical centers doing the research.

Full Story: Army Funds New Research Institute to Help Wounded

NJ Center for Biomaterials

New Drug stirs sceintists' hopes of halting AIDS

2007-03-01T15:56:00.000-05:00

Thursday, March 01, 2007
BY KITTA MacPHERSON
Star-Ledger Staff

An experimental AIDS drug, years in the making by scientists from Johnson & Johnson and Rutgers University, is part of an assortment of startlingly effective new treatments shown to zap resistant strains of HIV.

Scientists from J&J's Tibotec division reported the results yesterday at the end of a major AIDS conference in Los Angeles. The drug, TMC-278, has long been viewed as the most promising of a family of revolutionary AIDS compounds called 'DAPY' (rhymes with 'happy') being developed by the New Brunswick drug giant.

'Right now, it looks as if this could be a home run for patients,' said Roger Pomerantz, president of J&J's Tibotec Pharma Ltd. in Yardley, Pa., minutes after a presentation before a standing-room-only crowd of 4,000. 'I am very jazzed about this. It's going to have a huge impact.'

The J&J AIDS presentation followed a equally riveting talk by scientists from Gilead Sciences Inc. in California on their treatment advances, as well as announcements on Tuesday by Merck & Co. of Whitehouse and Pfizer of New York of major strides in AIDS treatment. All of the new drugs attack difficult-to-treat 'resistant' strains of the virus and that news has energized the AIDS community.

'It's a brand-new day,' said Stephen Smith, a physician-scientist who directs the department of infectious disease at Saint Michael's Medical Center in Newark. 'This means that no one in the developed world should be walking around anymore with any detectable levels of virus in their blood. These drugs are just blowing me away.'

The announcements made at the 14th annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, according to Smith and other experts, are as revolutionary as the breakthroughs of the mid-1990s when scientists developed drug cocktails to stop AIDS.

Merck's drug, MK-0518, blocks an enzyme called integrase that helps the virus replicate. The company plans to seek federal approval before July 1 to use the drug against resistant HIV, the deadly virus that causes AIDS. Gilead also presented promising results from tests on its integrase inhibitor, GS-9137, which is in second-stage testing.

Pfizer's HIV pill, named maraviroc, is the first of a new class of medicines called CCR5 inhibitors that block a chemical doorway used by the virus to infect cells. A chemical cocktail that included maraviroc suppressed the drug in patients who do not respond to older treatments, scientists reported.

Resistant strains, caused when the quick-change artist that is HIV morphs its shape and structure to survive lethal drug attacks, is a huge and growing medical problem. About 10 percent of new HIV patients are infected with a virus resistant to at least one type of AIDS drug, according to a study released earlier this week by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. And five people in 1,000, according to the study, suffer from a form that evades all three major AIDS therapies currently available.

TMC-278 ('Tibotec medical compound') is a non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor. Like other drugs in this category, it jams the machinery of reverse transcriptase, one of the prime proteins responsible for the reproduction of HIV."

USATODAY.com - What's Teoma, you ask? You could ask Jeeves...

2006-10-03T11:36:00.000-04:00

Teoma was a research project at IBM that morphed into a Rutgers research project ... The Teoma story is entwined with a colorful character named Apostolos Gerasoulis, widely known in tech as AG... Along the way, AG has won some recognition for Rutgers, where he's a professor along with his Ask.com job. The company even moved headquarters to New Jersey.

USATODAY.com - What's Teoma, you ask? You could ask Jeeves, but he's become ... Teoma

National Science Foundation awards $15 million grant to Rutgers-led engineering research center

2006-05-16T15:19:00.000-04:00

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a $15 million grant to Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and three collaborating universities to improve the way pharmaceuticals, foods and agricultural products are manufactured.

The five-year grant funds an NSF Engineering Research center (ERC) to enhance the quality and consistency of materials used in drug tablets, processed foods, agrichemicals and other composite organic products. Research will focus on the structure of component materials, including particle shapes and sizes and forces that bind them together. The center also will study how to efficiently produce structured materials in large quantity. Understanding the nature of these materials will provide a foundation for new manufacturing processes that are more predictable, consistent and cost-effective.

"While these industries have come up with many innovations such as controlled-release drug tablets, there is still more opportunity to incorporate materials science and engineering methods in manufacturing," said Fernando Muzzio, professor of chemical and biochemical engineering at Rutgers and the grant's principal investigator. "Today's products and processes were often developed through costly and time-consuming experimentation. We want to uncover more of the science behind these products and the engineering that goes into making them, so companies can get them to market faster, cut costs and eliminate waste."

Full Story: National Science Foundation awards $15 million grant to Rutgers-led engineering research center

The Engineering Research Center for Structure Organic Particulate Systems (C-SOPS)