Around the Quad

arounD the QuaD Algae fighter

Case researcher has a plan to beat back Lake Erie’s summer scourge

The oxygen-killing algae that invades Lake Erie each summer has a new foe. Huichun “Judy” Zhang, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, plans to attack the dreaded algal blooms with engineering.

Both the state and federal governments are supporting her efforts with a combined $700,000 in research grants.

Zhang, who specializes in environmental chemistry and engineering, has a two-pronged plan for confronting the farm runoff believed to fuel the blooms. First, she wants to decontaminate livestock manure. Second, she intends to filter phosphorus from the fertilizers that farmers spread upon their fields.

Both the manure and the fertilizers are washed by rain into rivers and streams, sending contaminated runoff north toward Lake Erie. Detoxifying that brew demands some nifty engineering.

Zhang envisions a series of honeycomblike structures that would capture phosphorous from runoff before it reaches the lake. She’s working with a phosphorus expert with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on filter models in the lab. They hope to place the filters in “hot spots” near factory farms.

The Ohio Water Development Authority is supporting their project with a two-year, $200,000 grant.

On another tack, Zhang is looking to detoxify livestock manure that farmers use as fertilizer. That means identifying and removing contaminants that stem from the use of antibiotics and growth hormones. Most of those chemicals are never digested by the animals, Zhang said, and presumably end up on crops or leach into groundwater.

She’s working on the manure project with an expert in sustainable farming at the National University of Ireland. The USDA is supporting the research with a three-year, $500,000 grant.

Protecting Lake Erie excites Zhang, who focused on water purification strategies during her doctoral studies at Georgia Institute of Technology. Three years ago, she joined the Case School of Engineering and discovered Lake Erie, where her family now fishes and kayaks.

“We’re definitely trying to look at better practices for farmers, to have a safer environment,” she said. “The goal is a cleaner lake — absolutely!”

Setting the stage

Former Weatherhead Dean Scott Cowen steps in as interim university president

With Barbara Snyder leaving this fall for new horizons, and the search still underway for her successor, there was a big opening at the top. An experienced administrator has stepped up to fill it.

Scott Cowen, a university trustee and former dean of the Weatherhead School of Management, will serve as interim president beginning October 1. He guided Tulane University through Hurricane Katrina and will now lead CWRU through its transition.

Snyder is leaving the university after 13 years to become president of the American Association of Universities. The board of trustees announced Cowen’s appointment in June. “Scott has provided wise counsel and insight throughout my time at Case Western Reserve,” Snyder said in a statement. “I know he will be an outstanding leader for the university during this time of transition, and I deeply appreciate his willingness to serve as interim president.”

Cowen led Tulane for 16 years. His tenure included Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of the university and New Orleans in 2005, after which he emerged as a leader of the recovery. Before Tulane, he worked for 23 years at the Weatherhead School, serving 14 years as dean.

“I am honored to return to Case Western Reserve, a place that played an enormous role in my professional and personal life,” Cowen said in a statement. “Barbara has transformed the university during her tenure, and I will work to continue that momentum until the arrival of its next permanent leader.”

Recycling the unrecyclable

Polymer researchers find new life for durable, single-use plastics

The permanency of plastic has long been one of its problems. Some superstrong plastics — known as thermoset polymers and often used in wind-turbine blades, boats and auto parts — cannot be recycled in any meaningful way. That’s a problem for the environment and for community landfills, where they pile up. A pair of researchers in the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering think they have a solution. Distinguished University Professor Ica

Manas-Zloczower

and Liang Yue, MS ’14, PhD ’18, a post-doctoral researcher

in her lab, have developed technology that shows promise transforming nonrecyclable plastics into recyclable ones that can be made into new products.

They have found a low-cost way to take rigid thermoset plastics and break them down into a reusable resin, as is done with softer plastics. Their discoveries have caused a buzz in the plastics industry.

“Given the fact that thermoset polymers are also quite expensive, the ability to recycle them becomes quite important,” Plastics Today observed.

Thermoset plastics are made resistant to heat and corrosion by a strong chemical cross-linked molecular network, which also makes them hard to break down and recycle. Manas-Zloczower and Yue are solving this problem by converting permanent, cross-linked structures into dynamic cross-linked ones, according to a press release.

Early promise

Young professor gets a big boost for her cancer research As she works to accel- isotopes, which are used in a new class of erate a critical cancer drugs to diagnose and treat cancer. therapy, researcher “Dr. Duval is a creative and energetic Christine Duval, scientist, and this award recognizes the PhD, has attracted originality and anticipated impact of her uncommon federal ideas,” Dan Lacks, PhD, chair of the Desupport. The assistant partment of Chemical and Biomolecular professor of chemical Engineering, said in a news release. “She engineering received an Early Career leverages her expertise in two distinct Research grant from the U.S. Department fields — membrane and nuclear sciences of Energy worth at least $750,000. — to propose innovative ways to extract

She ranks among only a handful of the medically important isotopes from researchers at Case Western Reserve ever to natural systems.” win the award and is the first known win- Duval came to the Case School of ner from the Case School of Engineering. Engineering in 2017 from Clemson

Duval is working on a faster and more University, where she earned her sustainable means for creating radioactive doctorate in chemical engineering. The dynamic network allows reshaping and reprocessing by conventional methods, such as hot-press molding or injection molding, to fabricate a new product. So far, the researchers have achieved success with small amounts of material in the lab. But they are working with the Great Lakes Energy Institute and CWRU’s Office of Technology Transfer to identify industry partners.

She’s one of 75 scientists nationally chosen for the DOE’s Early Career Research Program.

In its 11th year, the program is designed to bolster American science by supporting exceptional researchers early in their careers, when many scientists do their most formative work. Her award, announced in June, is worth at least $150,000 a year for five years to cover salary and research expenses.

“We’re excited about it because it will allow our lab to continue to do this work and improve on it by bringing on more student researchers,” Duval said. “It also builds on our existing collaborations with Argonne National Laboratory.”

To Case with grandpa’s tools

Freshman Michael Brough arrived with CIT essentials from 1955

Soon after being accepted to the Case School of Engineering, Michael Brough of Houston, Texas, received a surprising package from his grandfather in Newark, Ohio. It contained angles, squares, compasses and other measuring tools that a freshman needed at Case Institute of Technology in 1955 — even a slide rule in a leather case.

“He didn’t know what that was,” said Larry Brough ’59, chuckling. “Nobody uses that stuff anymore, I know. But I saved it all and now it’s his.”

Brough, who worked for Boeing, Babcock & Wilcox and the state of Ohio as an engineer, beams to know his grandson chose his alma mater.

“Michael’s a smart kid, and I’m sure he’ll do well at Case,” he said. “He looked at a dozen schools in the East, all elite, but he liked Case best.”

Michael Brough, who plays saxophone, plans a dual major in biomedical engineering and music, in association with the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Larry Brough is anxious to visit campus — if only to show his grandson how to use a slide rule.

arounD the QuaD Life-saving solution

Department of Defense thinks a Case researcher can save wounded warriors

Research from the lab of Anirban Sen Gupta, PhD, highlighted in the winter 2020 Case Alumnus, continues to advance synthetic blood platelet technologies while capturing broader interest and support.

In July, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded Sen Gupta and his team a $3.8 million grant to develop freeze-dried synthetic platelets for the battlefield, where they could be used to treat wounded soldiers and save their lives.

Sen Gupta, a professor of biomedical engineering, will work with partners at the University of Pittsburgh for in vivo testing of the platelets and with manufacturing partners at Haima Therapeutics, a biotechnology company he co-founded in 2016 to translate and commercialize the technology.

The DOD award will enable Sen Gupta to recruit new students and researchers for his 15-member lab in the Wickenden Building, where they pursue ideas that some doctors see as game changing.

Sen Gupta and his team have developed synthetic platelets that functionally mimic real platelets and can staunch bleeding. Real platelets are highly perishable and always in short supply. Haima’s patented product, called SynthoPlate, is long lasting and portable. It's designed to be intravenously injected at the scene of a trauma.

In April, the National Science Foundation awarded new funding to help Haima scale up the manufacture of SynthoPlate. This summer, CWRU’s Technology Transfer Office executed a licensing agreement with Haima, granting the company exclusive rights to develop and market the technology.

“It’s exciting and rewarding,” Sen Gupta said of the recent progress. “In my lab, the goal has always been to push the boundaries of translation. This will bring the technology closer to a conversation with the FDA.”

Haima Therapeutics will now seek venture capital funding while beginning animal studies, said Michael Bruckman, PhD, its chief operating officer and interim CEO. He said the goal is to launch human clinical trials in two years.

Homecoming reimagined

The pandemic canceled in-person events, but the Case spirit will shine on

Homecoming as we know it will have to wait. The board of the Case Alumni Association has decided to postpone all in-person CAA events this fall, including Homecoming/Reunion Weekend 2020, to protect the health of alumni and students. The annual All-Classes Celebration, Innovation ShowCASE and alumni awards ceremony will be rescheduled in 2021.

While there will not be live homecoming festivities this year, there will be ample opportunity for reminiscing and fellowship. CAA is reimagining Homecoming weekend, Oct. 8-12, with online events designed to be fun and enlightening.

RELIVING THE BIG GAME

In 1965, the Rough Riders of Case Institute of Technology faced off against the arch rival Red Cats of Western Reserve in an epic battle. We plan to rebroadcast the game online Saturday afternoon, October 10. The replay will feature playby-play and expert commentary from three alumni who could never forget it: John Massie ’66, Paul Stephan ’64, and Jim Treleaven ’69, PhD.

Bob McLeod ’66 catches a TD pass against Reserve in 1965.

RETRACING CASE’S FIRST EXPLORER SCIENTIST

Harry Fielding Reid set the pattern for generations of intrepid Case professors with his surveying trek to Glacier Bay, Alaska, in 1890. Former Dean Tom Kicher ’59, MS ’62, PhD ’65, will examine Reid’s epic journey and answer questions during an online Zoom presentation.

TOURING SEARS THINK[BOX]

There’s lots to explore in the largest open-access innovation center on an American college campus. This virtual tour will have you dreaming like a thinkboxer as it takes you from fabrication labs to prototyping stations and shows you the tools available to today’s campus innovators.

For details on these and all Homecoming 2020 events, including times and dates, go to casealumni.org/homecoming.