Daily Egyptian MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2016
DAILYEGYPTIAN.COM
SINCE 1916
VOL. 100 ISSUE 47
Family, friends grieve for Pravin Varughese two years after his death Bill lukitsch | @Bill_LukitschDE
Family and friends of Pravin Varughese gathered Saturday in Carbondale for a memorial service in the wooded area where police say he froze to death about two years ago. Carbondale police first discovered the body of the 19-year-old SIU student on Feb. 18, 2014 in the woods bordering Illinois Route 13, five days after he was reported missing. The mysterious circumstances surrounding Pravin’s disappearance have left his family seeking answers. “The support that we get from a lot of people keeps us going,” said his mother Lovely Varughese. “It’s really, really hard every day. We are living a nightmare.” Some attendees traveled hundreds of miles to join his mother, father and two sisters for the ceremony. About 60 people, led by Carbondale Police Chief Jeff Grubbs, trekked through an unmarked trail that was covered in mud, dead leaves, ice and trees to the site, roughly a quarter mile from where police say he was last seen. The service began with a favorite hymn of Pravin’s, followed by prayer. Afterward the family sobbed and embraced one another as they knelt on frozen ground beside a portrait of their lost loved one. Lovely said after the ceremony the family will not rest until they find justice for her son. “There is no way we are going to stop,” Lovely said. “We will follow this up and we will fight.” Please see PRAVIN | 4
Luke Nozicka | Daily Egyptian Front row, from left to right: Pravin Varughese’s younger sister Preethi, his older sister Priya, his mother Lovely and his father Mathew kneel during a memorial ceremony Saturday in the woods bordering Illinois Route 13, where police say he died of hypothermia about two years ago.
SIU’s Small Business Development Center to close if state doesn’t pass budget by March 31 AnnA spoerre | @annaspoerre_DE
El Greco is one of thousands of businesses open thanks to the help of SIU’s Small Business and Development Center. But if the state doesn’t pass a budget by March 31, the center will close, taking this resource from regional businesses, center director Greg Bouhl said. He said the university receives an annual $350,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, but because of Illinois’ budget stalemate, the center has not received the payments it needs since July 1. The program offers direct one-on-one consultation with clients who want to start or expand businesses. “Technically, we should have been shut down the first of the year, but, thanks to the university, they’ve given us a bit of a lifeline,” Bouhl said. He said the center, located in the university’s research park, has been open for 32 years and works with about 600 businesses and entrepreneurs a year, most of which are local. “We have some extremely talented folks and it would be a shame not to have their talent at SIU,” Bouhl said of the center, which employs six staffers, three student workers and a graduate
University research may aid ketamines’ approval as antidepressant tyler crotzer | @tylercrotzer_De
Aidan Osborne | Daily Egyptian Ethen Jefferson, co-owner of El Greco Greek Restaurant, carries baklava, a layered dessert, out of a walk-in refrigerator in the back Saturday. El Greco is one local businesses that benefited from SIU’s Small Business and Development Center. “It’s a tragedy that this has happened, and, frankly it makes me very concerned for the region, “ Jefferson said. “Once they shut down one thing thing, what’s to say they won’t shut down other things.”
assistant. “We do a lot of good work in our region, and I’ve been humbled to see all the responses from past clients who’ve reached out and expressed their concern.” Ethen Jefferson, who bought El Greco Greek Restaurant — located on the Strip — with Winslow Chou in 2013 after it briefly closed down, said Bouhl helped him decide to reopen El Greco. “He was instrumental in helping me get to the point where I could do this,” he said. “[Bouhl has] always been a wealth
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of information about what’s going on in the business world.” Jefferson said these centers exist so communities can strengthen their small business sector by giving them access to resources, which, when taken away, can hinder business growth. “It’s really too bad that, if the state can’t get its act together, [the center will] have to close down,” he said. “[Bouhl is] putting on a brave face, but he’s worried. I’m worried for him. I’m worried for the region.”
Thirty-two percent of college students in 2014 admitted they felt so depressed that it was difficult to function, according to the National College Health Assessment involving 94,197 students from 168 universities. Researchers at SIU are woking to better understand ketamine, which could potentially be a more effective antidepressant drug in preventing suicide. Xiang Cai, who works in the department of physiology, hopes with more research into how ketamine works that a safely regulated fastacting antidepressant can be manufactured and distributed to patients suffering from depression. Not only has ketamine been used to treat major depression disorder, but it has had success in suicide prevention because of its near immediate ability to curb suicidal thoughts. Without proper approval
by the FDA, many people will not have access to ketamine as a way to treat their mental illness. There is only a select number of clinics in the U.S. that administer ketamine as an antidepressant, according to the Ketamine Advocacy Network, and because the drug is not FDA-approved, patients cannot use insurance to help pay for the expensive medication. In the four years Cai has researched ketamine, he has concluded it alleviates depression symptoms through enhancing excitatory synaptic transmissions in the brain. The hippocampus, the region of the brain responsible for emotions and memory, and the prefrontal cortex, the region that dictates critical thinking and decision making, are the main areas of the brain where Cai has detected the most excited neurons after administering ketamine to his subjects. Please see KETAMINE | 2