Around the Quad

Galileo was right

And physicists know how to have fun.

The annual Pumpkin Drop returned to Case Quad this fall after a one-year hiatus because of Covid. On a bright, brisk afternoon Nov. 1, hundreds of students paused to watch as pumpkins were dropped from the roof of Strosacker Auditorium and splattered on a tarp below.

The Department of Physics stages the Halloween-season spectacle to recreate Galileo’s famed experiment of 1590, when he supposedly dropped brass weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to prove that the acceleration of a falling body is independent of mass.

True to Galileo’s findings, the falling gourds of different sizes seemed to explode in sync. Students cheered. The sun beamed. The cider was free.

“We do this because it really does show students that the laws of physics work and have real-world applications,” said Professor Corbin Covault, co-chair of the Department of Physics.

Covault directed the proceedings in a pirate costume, claiming Galileo was a swashbuckler.

“But really, we do this because it’s fun," he said.

Shaking off the rust

Case faculty hope to help local factories adopt new technologies.

Northeast Ohio is peppered with small to medium-sized manufacturers that churn out parts and products critical to the region’s economy and the relatively high quality of life here. But many do not have the resources to adopt to new technologies they need to remain competitive.

Some see a role for Case expertise. A faculty team led by Robert Gao, PhD, Chair of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has launched a project to help small and medium-sized manufacturers retool and modernize. He wants to bring smart systems and technologies to their shops and foundries.

“There’s a negative association with the phrase ‘Rust Belt,’ but the truth is that we made — and continue to make — good things here in Northeast Ohio,” Gao said in a press release issued by CWRU. “The problem is that there are a lot of new technologies that many SMMs can’t acquire as easily as [larger] companies. That’s where we come in — by providing one way for those companies to compete.”

Gao’s factory team, which includes faculty from Cleveland State University and Lorain County Community College, is supported by a three-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Its assistance will include developing and presenting case studies to manufacturers showing how to use some of the tools associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) — including artificial intelligence (AI) and sensors — to radically update their machinery.

The group also hopes to forge partnerships that will enhance regional workforce development and talent retention. Collaborators include Lincoln Electric, Dan T. Moore Co., the manufacturing advocate MAGNET and Team NEO, the state-sponsored economic development agency.

Greater Cleveland has the highest concentration of small manufacturers in Ohio and the group’s NSF proposal asserts that the success of so-called “legacy factories” is critical to the region’s well-being.

“So, in a very real way, if we can help these manufacturers improve, become more efficient, and successful, it will directly help their home community,” Gao said.

Covid fighter

Chemistry professor helped discover a way to block the spread of the coronavirus.

With the Delta variant surging and Omicron emerging in late November, the news from CWRU reminded people that scientists are on the job.

A cross-collegiate team of researchers announced they had discovered compounds that can slow and even block the spread of the coronavirus inside the body. The discovery could lead to new, more effective medicines for people battling Covid-19.

Blanton Tolbert, PhD, the Rudolph and Susan Rense Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, and one of the lead researchers, expressed hope that the discovery will lead to new “small molecule” virus-fighting drugs. Although Covid vaccines are widely available, drugs that help people survive and recover from infection remain limited.

Tolbert and his colleagues, who include researchers from Duke and Rutgers universities, have a patent pending on their method and plan to modify the chemical compounds to make them more powerful.

Their collaboration began at an informal February 2020 meeting at Duke among members of the three main research groups — just as the first novel coronavirus cases arrived in the United States, according to a press release from CWRU. "We laid out the first steps to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 because the group anticipated that the virus might become a bigger public health concern than it was initially perceived," Tolbert said.

The coronavirus works by breaking into a body’s cells, delivering genetic information in the form of RNA, and then hijacking the body’s molecular machinery to build new copies of itself, the news release said. Existing medications — such as remdesivir and Paxlovid — fight the virus by binding proteins. A small-molecule antiviral, in contrast, works by binding to RNA itself.

“This is a new way to think about antivirals for RNA viruses,” Tolbert’s colleague Amanda Hargrove, a chemistry professor at Duke, said in a statement. “This is a new way to think about antivirals for RNA viruses.”

Other members of Tolbert’s lab involved in the discovery were post-doctoral student Le Luo and graduate students Christina Haddad, Jesse Davila-Calderon, and Liang Yuan-Chiu. Their findings were published in the journal Science Advances.

Van Horn’s legacy

Scholar athletes grow in number at CWRU.

Frank Van Horn, PhD, served as athletic director of Case Institute of Technology from 1900 to 1926 and laid the foundation for the modern sports program at Case Western Reserve University.

He hired the first football coach, built a football stadium (later named in his honor) and helped launch varsity programs for basketball, swimming, and wrestling.

An acclaimed professor of geology and mineralogy, Van Horn sought to shape scholar athletes, a tradition that is stronger than ever at CWRU.

In December, the university inducted a record 76 members into the 2021 Van Horn Society, which recognizes student-athletes who have achieved a cumulative grade point average of 3.8 or higher and have junior or senior academic standing.

In the 1920s, Van Horn Field was thought to have the finest grandstand in the Midwest.

The 76 inductees surpassed the previous program-high of 63, set in 2020. Thirty-nine of the honorees, or more than half, are STEM majors.

Previously known as the CWRU Scholar-Athlete Award, it was renamed in honor of Van Horn in 2015. The scholar athletes were honored December 6 at an induction ceremony where they were congratulated by CWRU President Eric Kaler. 2021 Van Horn Society

Super-duper computer coming

Case researchers will soon have access to way more computing power. When he came to expected to accelerate machine learning Case in 2020 as the and artificial intelligence (AI) tasks by at inaugural chair of least 10 times current capabilities, accordthe Department ing to a news release from the university. of Computer and Chaudhary led the effort to secure Data Sciences, funding from the National Science Vipin Chaudhary, Foundation and the Ohio Department PhD, cited a goal of of Higher Education Action Fund for bringing advanced computing power to the nearly $1 million system. As part the School of Engineering. of his NSF proposal, he surveyed faculty

Mission accomplished. and student researchers and learned of

This summer, the university will their needs for more computing power begin installing an Artificial Intelligence for projects ranging from photovoltaic SuperComputer, or AISC, the largest and research to financial fraud protection most powerful computer ever offered to and cybersecurity. CWRU researchers. The new system is “To solve large problems and to create solutions that will have an impact, you have to have the infrastructure to do the work,” Chaudhary said. “I believe this will boost a lot of ongoing research and enable a lot of new work.” Dean Venkataramanan “Ragu” Balakrishnan expressed excitement. The AISC will offer researchers “the power to explore further and faster than ever before, and will prove catalytic in advancing breakthroughs in disciplines across the university,” the dean said in a statement. The supercomputer will be housed in at least five refrigerator-sized computers in the university’s data center.

New Covid precautions

A surge in cases shaped a cautious start to spring semester.

In light of a rising wave of Covid cases regionally and nationwide, Case Western Reserve introduced new pandemic protocols and prevention strategies to start the spring semester Jan. 10. Among the measures: • The semester began with online classes • Booster shots became required • A testing mandate was re-imposed • Vending machines dispensed free

Covid testing kits • The university converted a sorority house into Covid housing The December 2021 coronavirus surge brought the highest number, by far, of new cases and hospitalizations that Ohio has seen since the pandemic began in March 2020. University President Eric Kaler expressed optimism that the new prevention strategies would be enough to weather a wave attributed to the highly-contagious Omicron variant and the more lethal Delta variant.

The semester started on time with residence halls open.

“Unless infection rates remain exceptionally high, remote teaching for inperson courses should not extend beyond the first two weeks of the semester, and our goal is that testing and other data will allow us to return to in-person classes even sooner,” Kaler and Provost Ben Vinson III announced in a Dec. 23 email to students and faculty.

The university’s Covid-19 Response Team took several steps to over the holiday break to promote prevention and prepare for outbreaks.

Students returned to find vending machines dispensing free Covid testing kits at about a dozen sites across campus, and good thing: testing was required of all staff and students each of the first two weeks of school.

In a more dramatic step, the university transformed the Delta Gamma house on Murray Hill Road into an “isolation space” for students who catch Covid-19. Sorority members were relocated to other campus housing to create the space that will be managed by University Health and Counseling Services staff. Administrators said they selected Delta Gamma after reviewing occupancy rates for university-owned fraternity and sorority residences.

Meanwhile, all members of the campus community were required to receive a booster shot by Jan. 7. To speed that process, roomy Adelbert Gym was converted into a vaccine clinic.

For the latest information on Covid protocols at CWRU, go to case.edu/covid19/.