On Campus We look back on our recent past with pride, or shame
N
PASS
O CENTER FOR COMPUTATIONAL RESEARCH/IBC DIGITAL
E E G R N
E D I T I
A fair to remember Last semester, campus greenies and more than 30 Buffalo environmental groups hosted the largest-ever UB Sustainable Living Fair. Hundreds gathered in the Student Union in their best hemp necklaces to raise awareness, or to grab free home-energy-saving kits for their drafty apartments.
Plugging in Finally, a place to park the Tesla (or electric car of your choice). UB has installed three charging stations on the North and South campuses—just one more step toward our
The CCR helped create images for MTV2’s Video Mods TV show.
Big Brains
goal of climate neutrality by 2030.
Sustainability smarts
Massive computing power drives genetic medicine, and much more
The UB Academies added its fifth academy
By Lauren Newkirk Maynard » Gigaflops and server discs may sound drier than dust, but UB’s Center for Computational Research (CCR) is anything but. The data-crunching power behind the center learn why it’s important to shut off the has played a role in everything from editing MTV music videos to assisting “shape-shifting materilights and turn down their music—and als research” funded by the U.S. Air Force. The CCR may soon be instrumental in revolutionizing the start making their apologies to mom for management and treatment of major diseases, like diabetes and cancer. ignoring her all those years. During his State of the State address in January, New York Governor Andrew DOWNTOWN CAMPUS Cuomo announced a $105-million investment in genomics (the study of human FAIL genetic information, or DNA). Thanks to its supercomputing muscle and experience in bioinformatics and genomic research, UB was chosen to partner with the Manhattan-based New York Genome Center Winter 1, Trees 0 to form the UB-New York Genome Center Initiative—an effort to put the Empire State at the leading Soon after they were planted, edge of personalized medicine. catalpa and red maple trees along the Flint entrance of the North If approved by the legislature (still pending at press time), $50 million of this state funding will help Campus began dying, thanks to Buffalo’s the CCR improve its supercomputing infrastructure and store the massive amounts of data gathered harsh weather. Replacement trees—hopeby researchers at UB and across the state. Ultimately it will lead to increased collaboration between the fully a heartier breed—are due this spring. CCR and innovative start-ups, giving a boost to the local economy. The CCR, housed on UB’s Downtown CamBlowing smoke pus, has been a key component of UB 2020, In 2009, UB joined 300 colleges in banthe university’s strategic plan. Center experts ning smoking on their campuses, and help faculty researchers harness the emerging established smoking-cessation programs discipline of computational science, combining to help people quit. But many are still heavy-duty quantitative analysis with experisneaking a drag outside buildings, leaving ments in everything from biotechnology to butts on the ground where receptacles used to be. pharmaceutical drug discovery, materials science, physics and global climate change. ≤ last fall: sustainability. Now students can
Tweetable: This spring, Bruce Jackson’s new graduate English course explores narrative structures in the hit TV series “Breaking Bad.” 8
SPRING 2014 At Buffalo
Cytochrome P450, an enzyme responsible for drug metabolism in the body, as modeled on CCR’s computers.