2008 | Change Agents | The University of Mississippi Research magazine

CHANGE AGENTS

AND THEIR REVOLUTIONARY RESEARCH

Small State, Big Reach

The university’s slogan—“Opening Doors. Opening Minds.”— embraces Ole Miss’s commitment to an educational and cultural center for people of all backgrounds, all disciplines, and all viewpoints.

“ the growth of the University of Mississippi as a research institution parallels its growth as an open, diverse institution,” said Dr. alice clark, vice chancellor for research. clark, a former ole Miss graduate student who has been studying or working here for nearly 30 years, states, “at ole Miss, we confront society’s problems head on.”

ole Miss researchers attract about $5.5 million in new grants every month, an impressive figure given the size of the university. ole Miss is the flagship university of a small state, with enrollment of a little more than 17,000 students. in a cash-poor state, university leaders have worked hard to build the institution’s external funding for research projects.

to be effective, clark said, ole Miss had to focus its energy. at ole Miss, major research centers have typically begun with one dedicated, magnetic person, who developed a creative approach to a tough problem.

“ for a relatively small public institution, we foster research that is highly competitive and nationally prominent,” clark said. “ that’s because we strategically focus on certain problems where one researcher or one big idea can have a huge impact. from there, we build until we are national leaders in addressing that problem.”

clark says that process is akin to the chemistry of using seed crystals to jump-start crystal growth. in a solution, the seed crystal provides an existing lattice on which other crystals form.

at ole Miss, those seed crystals take human form—such as Dr. sam Wang, who built the national center for computational hydroscience and engineering from the ground up; or the late Dr. hank Bass, who built the national center for physical acoustics into a global force that now has a number of prominent researchers taking the lead.

there are countless other examples of the global impact this small community has, whether it’s addressing climate change or searching for a cure for the millions infected with malaria.

“historically, this university has been called on repeatedly to illustrate how higher education can meet societal needs,” clark said. “at ole Miss, we know we don’t have to be big,” clark said. “We just have to be visionary and bold.”

For Ole Miss researchers, environmentalism is not a trend, not a fashion to follow, not an excuse to buy new bamboo sheets or carbon credits from a dubious Web site.

The engineers, chemists and biologists who have dedicated their careers to searching for alternative fuels, reducing emissions or mitigating water pollution are just glad the rest of us are finally catching on.

CONTRADICTION

In 2007 and 2008, Dr. Wei-Yin Chen taught the firstever Ole Miss course on climate change, stood with the university chancellor as he signed the american College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, suggested that the governor join the governors’ Declaration on Climate Change, requested that faculty members incorporate climate change into many academic disciplines and asked that faculty members who tackle climate change receive incentives.

not bad for a guy who’s been doing fossil fuel research since the 1970s.

“ the first thing I told my students in the Climate Change course is that I’m actually a polluter,” Chen said, laughing.

actually, what seems like a contradiction really isn’t. Chen, a chemical engineering professor, has spent the last three decades finding ways to make coal burn cleaner.

“In the ’70s, we were worried about sulfur dioxide, so I worked on that. In the ’80s, nitrogen oxide (nO) was a big issue, so that’s when I began to work on nO reduction,” Chen said. While other researchers tackled mercury oxide and methyl mercury from coal in the 1990s, Chen perfected his work on nitrogen oxide reduction, starting at the very beginning by better understanding coal’s reaction chemistry. he then was able to devise more effective reburning techniques that reduce nitrogen oxide—the

(top) Dr. Wei-Yin Chen teaches students about coal chemistry.

(bottom) UM offers courses on climate change.

major contributor to smog—by a much larger percentage than before.

“During that four-year project, we generated new improvements every year,” Chen said.

the next step, Chen said, is to develop multifunctional pollutant-control technologies that can effectively reduce sulfur, mercury, nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide from coal-fired power plants. that’s important for the United states, where coal fuels more than 50 percent of

the nation’s energy needs, but also important to China, an emerging world power that depends on coal—and whose air quality has deteriorated exponentially in the last 10 years.

Chen recently visited a major power plant in Beijing to consult on emission reduction. With energy demands rising around the globe, Chen’s work is more important than ever.

“In 2007, it cost $6 to produce 1 million BtU of energy using petroleum fuels. to produce the same amount using coal, it cost $1,” Chen said. “Coal is a wonderful source of energy—but only if we use it right and find a way to handle the emission problems.”

so Chen’s dedication to mitigating climate change isn’t such a contradiction after all. It makes perfect sense, then, that an editor at scribner has asked Chen to edit a book, Mitigating Climate Change. Co-edited by Dr. John seiner, associate director at the national Center for Physical acoustics and mechanical engineering professor on campus, the book will feature chapters from Ole Miss mechanical engineers, civil engineers, chemists and

biologists, as well as some outside and multidisciplinary experts.

for an unapologetic coal burner, that’s pretty impressive.

HARV e STIN g

A l T e RNATIV e F uel S

from collecting old cooking oil for powering his truck to harvesting natural gas hydrates from the ocean floor for powering the world, geology professor Dr. Robert Woolsey

dedicated his career to finding viable, safe alternatives to petroleum and to leaving behind a cleaner earth.

tragically, Woolsey’s incredible life was cut short by a July 2008 car accident. friends mourned the passing of the 72-year-old father of seven. Carol Lutken, a longtime colleague, remembered Woolsey was truly “gifted with people. he fueled your enthusiasm,” she added. “he could inspire you to explore new directions, to take your work where you never thought you’d go.”

(top) A schematic diagram of the Seafloor Observatory, devoted to the study of gas hydrates beneath the ocean's floor

(bottom) The late Dr. Robert Woolsey, UM geologist

Woolsey led three research groups at Ole Miss that will carry on his legacy: the Mississippi Mineral Resources Institute (MMRI), the Center for Marine Resources and environmental technology (CMRet ) and the seabed technology Research Center, part of the national Institute for Undersea technology (nIUst ), also based at Ole Miss and funded by the national Oceanic and atmospheric administration (nOaa).

Research and curiosity took Woolsey in a lot of different directions—from designing and building a naturally safe and ecologically friendly wastewater treatment for friends at his favorite vacation resort in Belize to making his own biodiesel on campus after fuel prices took a major chunk of his research budget.

“We took care of ourselves, and now we’re also making biodiesel for the landscape service on campus,” Woolsey said in an interview just two weeks before his death. “But spent vegetable oil isn’t viable for everyone—it’s not

sustainable—so we’re actually looking at ways to produce biodiesel with algae.” Brad Crafton, a UM student and research technician at CMRet, worked on this project with Woolsey and continues to work on it now.

When asked about his wide-ranging approach to alternative fuels and conservation, Woolsey laughed. “We’re not proud,” he said. “anything that works. If we’re going to survive, we’ve got to bring a lot of different solutions in. there isn’t just one answer.”

Woolsey’s biodiesel project grew out of his legendary enthusiasm and the inspiration of working with Crafton, an ardent environmentalist, Lutken said. Chiefly, his life’s work—work that continues through his research groups and colleagues—focused on simple solutions to big problems.

as a geologist and marine mining engineer, Woolsey’s career spanned the globe and included the recovery and research of a wide range of mineral resources. gas

At the Seafloor Observatory, scientists research gas hydrates.

hydrates, a solid form of natural gas and water formed under high-pressure/low-temperature conditions in deep water, were one of the greater passions in his later years. geologists estimate the ocean floor contains twice as much natural gas hydrates as all the earth’s coal, oil, gas and other forms of natural gas combined.

Woolsey directed efforts to form a consortium of scientists with interests and expertise in gas hydrates in the gulf of Mexico. the group has representatives from several countries in the fields of academia, industry and government, and is now in the process of deploying a seafloor Observatory, the first in the world devoted to the study of gas hydrates.

Until recently, gas hydrates were more of a nuisance than anything else, causing seafloor instability that cost shell Oil $200 million in a matter of minutes when hydrates shifted and liquefied, bringing a drilling platform down to the bottom of the gulf of Mexico. the Department of Interior funded Woolsey’s first study of hydrates as a potential hazard.

Lutken, CMRet ’s acting director, is a geologist who aids gas hydrates research along with Dr. tom Mcgee, a geophysicist in the group.

“I study the geological framework where gas hydrates are known to occur in order to predict where else they might be,” Lutken said. Mcgee developed a data-

gathering system that CMRet researchers are using to develop a method for identifying gas hydrates on seismic records and thereby predicting their exact location on the ocean floor.

Working together, Lutken, Mcgee and others can save lives and prevent the destruction of expensive equipment. Once a hydrate-prone area is identified, seismic surveying and monitoring systems will be used to pinpoint exactly where the hydrates are.

“Rather than risk millions of dollars of equipment and put people in harm’s way, we hope to supply the capability to decide whether a platform location is safe or whether moving it a few thousand feet to a safer location is necessary,” Lutken said.

But the Department of energy also became interested in CMRet ’s hydrates work as a potential homegrown energy resource.

We can’t mine hydrates, which “are like the caulk in a leaky ship,” Woolsey said. “Release them, and methane is vented into the ocean and atmosphere, which defeats the whole purpose, really.”

Instead, Woolsey’s team has been figuring out how to trap them.

More than six years ago, consortium researchers be-

Dr. Ray Highsmith at The University of Mississippi Field Station

The Eagle Ray, an autonomous underwater vehicle, uses sensors to provide high-resolution seafloor maps.

gan studying how and why natural gas forms solids with sediments on the ocean floor. they found the vented gas needed some kind of biosurfactant to stick to as a framework for its structure. they also studied the seafloor, pinpointing where gas is vented. If tanks with biosurfactants are placed near the vent, hydrates form inside the tank. One cubic foot of hydrates expands to 170 cubic feet of quality methane gas.

Woolsey, ever the engineer, was already thinking about how this research could be scaled up to help mankind.

“he was always looking into the future,” Lutken said. “always asking, ‘how could this be done one day?’”

Woolsey speculated that a barge could be used to capture huge amounts of methane on the ocean floor, then keep the contents chilled and under pressure for transport.

“You’d be sequestering methane that would normally be vented into the atmosphere, providing a considerable amount of clean natural gas for use and employing people in this country instead of sending money and jobs elsewhere,” he said.

It’s a great idea, Lutken said, one Woolsey left in the very capable hands of fellow scientists inspired by his work and his vision.

the Y e LLOW

s UBM a RI ne

all those deep-water seafloor studies require getting close enough to the seafloor to do meaningful work. Woolsey’s team has help on that front from Ray highsmith, the director of nIUst and the university’s field station. through nIUst and its Undersea vehicles technology Center at the University of southern Mississippi, highsmith coordinated the procurement of the eagle Ray, a 16-foot-long, bright yellow unmanned undersea vehicle that uses acoustic sensors to provide high-resolution seafloor maps and sub-bottom profiling.

highsmith, a marine scientist, helped study and mitigate the impact of oil spills in alaska, where he lived and worked prior to moving south to manage the UM field station and its affiliates, the Center for Water and Wetland Resources and nIUst. the UM field station, just a few miles from the Ole Miss campus, is a 740-acre wildlife research and education facility. Research being conducted at the field station includes using rice plants to clean pesticides from streams and looking for new, health-related chemicals in plants that grow naturally, furthering the vision of promoting environmental stewardship with innovative community outreach programs.

Dr. Jack Seiner conducts wind tunnel experiments to research aeroacoustics.

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REACHING OUT AROUND THE GLOBE

University of Mississippi researchers are affecting the lives of people thousands of miles from Oxford, Mississippi, with their research on drugs, remote sensing, space law and computational hydroscience.

STOPPING A KILLER

More than 2,000 people die every day from malaria. Most of those deaths—about 90 percent—are children. Many millions more are infected every year with the disease, which ravages the body, making it impossible to work or take care of a family.

If this debilitating killer ravaged Ohio or Ontario or great Britain, malaria would be the focus of every drug company research and development lab in the country. But most of these cases affect people in africa or southeast asia—impoverished people who can’t buy medicine. that meant that, until recently, drug researchers such as Dr. Larry Walker and his colleagues couldn’t get the research funding they needed to fight the disease. that began to change for Walker, the director of the University of Mississippi’s national Center for natural Products Research, in 2003. swiss-based Medicines for Malaria Venture, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to developing affordable new anti-malarial drugs, solicited proposals from international researchers and chose to fund several—including two from UM’s school of Pharmacy, one of the premier natural products research programs in the country.

“It’s a huge undertaking,” Walker said. “We’re just getting started.”

Just getting started—except that the University of Mississippi group has been pursuing anti-malarial compounds for two decades now.

“For the most standard anti-malarial drugs, the problem is emerging resistance,” Walker said. “ that means we always need new drugs to fight the disease.

“ the other major problem with anti-malarial drugs is that many of them have safety problems,” Walker said. “a small but significant number of people can become very sick or even die from them.”

the most promising new drug, an 8-aminoquinoline called nPC1161B, was prepared by Dr. Dhammika nanayakkara, a chemist at the university’s national Center for natural Products Research. It was advanced

during the 1990s by a team of researchers, including Dr. alice Clark, current vice chancellor for research and sponsored programs, who were searching for cures for infections in aIDs patients. When Walker joined this project, his main focus was on how the drug might work in animals. nPC1161B appeared much less toxic and much more effective than products on the market in lab

tests and animal studies. the next step is human testing, which is anticipated to begin next year, Walker said. If that goes well, the drug could be on the market in three years. still, “the failure rate is pretty high,” Walker said, but the team is optimistic.

“We’re not looking to realize monetary gains on this. that wasn’t the point,” Walker said. “We want to contribute to the effort to eradicate this disease for good.”

MAPPING FOR T h E WORST

after a hurricane, it’s hard enough for emergency responders in the United states to locate the people who need help and provide them with adequate shelter. and we have a distinct advantage over the developing world: maps, street maps and grids, the trappings of a highly organized structure that helps us find where we’re going, locate resources and get them to those in need.

Put those emergency responders in a remote village in el salvador, which has no street names and no record of who lives where. In a disaster, what do you do? how do you begin to help?

geology and geological engineering associate professor Dr. greg easson and his group, LumiMap-UM, are partnering with World Vision, an international aid organization and development agency, to develop and demonstrate technological solutions for field mapping to aid in disaster-preparedness projects.

the team first visited el salvador because of its exceptionally high risk for natural disasters such as hurricanes, tropical storms, mudslides and earthquakes, easson said. World Vision in el salvador was the lead partner for World Vision, and their goal is to have up-todate information about the population, especially those people living at the margins of villages, often in small shacks on land they do not own. these data will help

Dr. Larry Walker, director of the National Center for Natural Products Research

About 90 percent of malaria deaths occur in children.

World Vision in el salvador develop more effective plans for shelters during a disaster and determine what supplies are needed to speed the recovery.

“By predetermining how many people are in what regions and what resources they have, post-disaster relief efforts should become much more effective,” easson said. here’s how it works: after being trained by LumiMap-UM staff, World Vision staff and community workers set out to every corner of el salvador carrying hand-held computers with global positioning systems (gPs). the workers use the mobile geographic information system (gIs) to enter the survey information into the hand-held device, which instantly records their location with the gPs.

the system funnels the field data to gIs database, which manages the data for an Internet mapping site at UM. the LumiMap-UM-hosted Web site makes the maps available for display and analysis by World Vision personnel around the world. these maps can be used to

plan for effective distribution of relief supplies.

“In el salvador, we actually went out into the field and gathered the data amongst the community,” said Justin Janaskie, one of the graduate students who accompanied easson. “When dirt roads allowed us to travel only so far by vehicle, then we would get out and walk.”

easson said after the initial surveys in el salvador, data were available via LumiMap-UM server in 12 hours. since then, easson has taken the same project to Brazil, back to el salvador and to Mexico in the summer of 2008. he hopes to continue to work with World Vision International to more fully incorporate the use of mobile gIs into their development and disaster-response efforts.

easson and his staff have presented their work on the use of technology in humanitarian emergencyresponse efforts at a conference in nairobi, Kenya, at local civic groups and in a special session of the esRI user conference in san Diego, California.

t R ans F e RRI ng K n OWL e D ge

the national Center for Computational hydroscience and engineering (nCChe) has been invited by the United nations, the Interamerican Development Bank and by foreign governments, supported by UsaID, to transfer its technology in order to help developing countries.

nCChe is led by sam Wang, a fixture of UM engineering for 40 years. Wang is recognized worldwide for his work building computational models that not merely estimate but actually simulate water flows, sediment and pollutant transport, soil erosion and flood damage.

Wang has won the world’s highest honors in erosion and sedimentation research: the hans albert einstein award in 2003 and the WaseR Qian Lin award in 2007.

although most any graduate student with a grant can build a computational model, nCChe’s model has benefited from years of adjustments made by dozens of expert researchers.

“ the quickly executed model can solve one or two problems in the proposal, but once the student graduates, there is nobody to improve it,” Wang said. “as a result it becomes obsolete. Our institution is different. We develop the model collectively, and we continuously improve by updating with the latest technology, even in theory or mathematical methodology. If something new is happening, we immediately try to put that in our model. therefore our model always stays at the forefront.”

Wang has given keynote speeches, special lectures

World Vision in El Salvador worker surveys information.

(top) Dr. Greg Easson directs information collection in El Salvador.

(bottom) Workers gathering information in El Salvador walked to their destinations when vehicles could get no farther on dirt roads.

and instructional courses in more than 30 countries on six continents. at the center of Wang’s globetrotting: sharing his groundbreaking computational models with the developing world so that better dams can be built, water quality can be controlled and erosion can be mitigated—basically, so that life can become better for millions of people.

this kind of technology transfer operates on the “teach a man to fish” philosophy.

“ the most effective assistance given to a developing country is transferring the technology to them so that they can solve their own problems, ” Wang said, “instead of outsiders’ building something for them.”

FL y MOZ a MBIQU e ? I t sta R ts I n MI ss I ss IPPI

Whether they want to regulate their airports or observe earth from outer space, many nations invite the national Center for Remote sensing, air and space Law to help them. Without the work of the center, international airports could not operate. satellites could not be deployed. Chaos would reign in aerospace and outer space. the center, with its worldwide and otherworldly focus, is based here at Ole Miss.

“If you’re a nation that’s just starting to get involved in space law, and you are looking for expertise, you talk to people like us,” said Joanne gabrynowicz, the director of the national Center for Remote sensing, air and space Law. “ the United nations Office on Outer space affairs conducts space law capacity-building workshops in a different country every year. the U.n. office brings together scholars from around the world—often, that’s us—and sends us to each of these countries in order for the decision makers in those countries to talk to us about what they need to do.”

some of the nations that consult with gabrynowicz and her staff do want to build space programs. But some of them want something simpler—like an international airport to jump-start trade and tourism. to do that, a nation needs a complete set of aviation laws—so they

turn to the center.

Barely two years after helping develop a framework for civil aviation regulations in Mongolia, the center’s associate director, Jacqueline serrao, has taken on a challenging project in the african nation of Mozambique. serrao is developing a complete set of aviation laws for the nation, including regulations for airport licensing and certification.

through a World Bank grant, serrao also is developing the organizational structure and staffing for a Mozambique Civil aviation authority division responsible for aerodrome (small airport) standards and safety.

“ this is quite a challenging and exciting project,”

serrao said. “It involves creating a set of airport laws and regulations suited to the aviation market of Mozambique while maintaining international U.n. standards. I’ve had to quickly grasp Mozambique’s legal, social, political and economic structure, and fit that into a comprehensive body of aviation law.”

Located in southern africa, Mozambique is one of the world’s poorest countries. embroiled in a 16-year civil war until 1992, the country has since worked to restore order and grow the economy with the help of some foreign aid.

serrao’s work could help bring the country into compliance with international safety standards for airports—the first step in opening up airspace to more international air traffic.

“a country’s aviation system is only as safe as its government’s ability to oversee that system,” serrao says. “In this case, airport legislation is necessary to ensure that the Mozambique Civil aviation authority can effectively carry out its aviation safety oversight responsibilities. Without such a commitment to aviation safety, investors will be reluctant to enter the Mozambique market. a country that does not have a legal infrastructure in place tends to get left out.”

Attorneys Jacqueline Serrao (left) and Joanne Gabrynowicz of the National Center for Remote Sensing, Air and Space Law

A round-table forum on "Space Law in the Era of Globalization."

PREPARING

PREPARING FOR WORST-CASE SCENARIOS

In recent years, the worst has happened.

A tsunami devastated Southeast Asia. Hurricanes and cyclones have swept over the Gulf Coast of the United States and the river deltas of Myanmar, with terrible losses of life and infrastructure. Major earthquakes have rocked China and Pakistan.

About the only thing predictable about natural disasters is that they will happen. The best humans can do is prepare for them. For that, the world has help from University of Mississippi researchers.

A BETTER FLOW

though hurricane Katrina’s surge was powerful, the majority of people killed in the terrible storm died a day later, after levees broke around the city and water poured through the breach, flooding entire neighborhoods.

at the national Center for Computational hydroscience and engineering (nCChe), the research team is known worldwide for its ability to not merely estimate but actually simulate water flows, sediment and pollutant transport, soil erosion and flood damage with a highly complex, constantly improving computational model.

the Department of homeland security trusts nCChe to help them predict how, where and why dams or levees break—and then, crucially, what happens next.

Dr. sam Wang, a Barnard Distinguished Professor, has won distinguished honors (hans albert einstein award from the american society of Civil engineers, 2003; Qian Lin award from the World association for sedimentation and erosion Research, 2007) for his achievements modeling free surface flow, erosion and sedimentation processes. he founded nCChe in 1983 and has been its director ever since.

“When there is a dam break or a levee breach, the water inundates the terrain, causing disastrous impact,” Wang said. “Our models can predict the flood arrival time, the water depths, how long the water will stay and when it will recede. this information has been used by emergency management and homeland security officials.” nCChe’s models can also be applied to improve dam

and levee designs as well as flood warning systems during dam or levee failures.

“We want to do more to enhance the security of water infrastructures by modifying the design of dam and levee systems,” Wang said.

“When the water reaches a critical stage, the discharge rates of reservoirs will be controlled to release water to unpopulated areas, so the damage to populated urban areas can be minimized.”

yafei Jia, associate director for basic research at nCChe, is the principal investigator of another homeland security project aimed at predicting the effect of flooding due to levee breach and developing better technologies for the closure of breached levees. the research will also assess the environmental impact of these floods by simulating what may be transported during movement and its effect on the quality of water and ecology.

FINDING THE WEAK SPOTS

in addition to nCChe’s research on dam breaks and levee breaches, researchers at the national Center for Physical acoustics (nCPa) aim to prevent the breaks before they happen.

in the last 50 years, the U.s. Department of agriculture (UsDa) constructed nearly 11,000 flood-control dams in 2,000 watersheds nationwide. these watershed projects represent a $14 billion infrastructure providing flood control, municipal water supply, recreation and

(top) Dr. Sam Wang utilizes computational modeling to simulate water flow. These predictors allow for planned reactions in the event of flooding emergencies.

(bottom) Diagram of coastal water flow around a delta

wildlife-habitat enhancement. But because many are aging, they also represent a perilous risk.

Often, a visual inspection of a dam is all that’s needed to identify a potential failure and repair the problem. however, others are not so easily detected. that’s where nCPa scientists come in to help.

in a project sponsored by the UsDa, Drs. Jim sabatier and Craig hickey are using sound waves to detect invisible soft spots within the dams. the process is similar to using an ultrasound to diagnose a patient—but this time, the patient is the dam or levee. sound waves traveling through the dam create images of its interior. these images provide unique and valuable precursory information about the onset of piping, seepage and anomalous pore pressures—all symptoms of an eventual failure.

sabatier and hickey’s work can help determine if internal erosion of the embankment has weakened the structures beyond repair, if repairs should commence immediately, or if the dams or levees are in fine condition. Rather than responding to a disaster, nCPa research can prevent dam and levee breaks before they occur.

ACTIVELY LISTENING

nCPa’s technology also fuels a worldwide project that can be used to speed the response to a volcanic eruption or more accurately predict the path of a hurricane.

nCPa’s former director, the late Dr. hank Bass, helped establish a global system of 60 infrasonic listening stations to monitor compliance with the nuclear test ban several years ago. the extra-sensitive stations pick up low-frequency waves called infrasound and can detect explosions around the globe—even underground or in bad weather.

But the stations—which are as close by as UM's field station and as far away as antarctica and Palau— found many new uses, from helping determine what happened to the Columbia space shuttle to detecting volcanic eruptions and hurricanes.

“hurricanes produce infrasonic traces that the air can’t absorb, and can be picked up by our devices hundreds of miles away,” said Claus hetzer, the nCPa scientist gathering data on hurricane infrasounds. “By comparing changes in the infrasound with changes in the storm’s path and intensity, we hope to use our data to provide better forecasting in the future.”

To reduce the risk of damage to buildings during a natural disaster, UM researchers are looking for ways to incorporate fortifying elements.

that means more efficient evacuation, better logistical pre-planning by emergency responders and, most importantly of all, saved lives.

STAYING SOLID

Remember this for trivial Pursuit: the biggest american earthquake we know of occurred in alaska in 1964. But the most powerful earthquake in the continental U.s. did not happen in san francisco. Or even California.

in fact, it wasn’t out west at all. in 1811, a magnitude eight quake in new Madrid, Missouri, rang church bells in Boston and damaged buildings in Charleston, south Carolina. historical accounts say the Mississippi River ran backward. the new Madrid seismic zone is still one of the nation’s most active, according to the U.s. geological survey. the zone touches northern Mississippi, but building codes do not require any special considerations for earthquakes, and most communities are not prepared to deal with the damage another “big one” would cause. that’s why civil engineering professor Dr. Chris Mullen and his colleagues at the Center for Community earthquake Preparedness (CCeP) have spent nearly a decade educating state emergency-management officials about earthquake risks and helping responders plan for the inevitable.

Mullen developed a computational model that can literally show what will happen to key buildings or infra-

structure in earthquakes of varying intensity. the model animates buildings and bridges, showing them jump, twist and sometimes fail from the strain of the shaking. Based partly on his model’s demonstration, retrofitting of several key UM campus buildings has incorporated earthquake-resistant elements, including the recent structural renovation of the 150-year-old Lyceum and the installation of seismic gas shut-off valves at high-occupancy dormitories.

Beyond campus, the simulations attracted the Mississippi emergency Management agency (MeMa) and the federal emergency Management agency (feMa).

“ the models were also useful to plan for other disasters common here, such as hurricanes or tornadoes,” Mullen said. Based on his initial work with the earthquake model, feMa and MeMa worked with Mullen and CCeP on an ambitious project to establish a comprehensive hazard-assessment methodology for the state.

“Using geospatial data, we can identify the affected area and estimate the local intensity of hazards within that area, inventory key infrastructure such as buildings, bridges, utility networks, roads, etc., and quantify their fragility,” Mullen said. “Our study was significant, but it was only one of several statewide and regional studies sponsored by feMa nationally.”

that work has been followed by yet another mitigation project for Mullen through the Department of homeland security science and technology Directorate, this one using his model to predict damages to buildings in an explosion. But that’s another story.

Dr. Chris Mullen

UM researchers established a comprehensive hazardassesment methodology for the state.

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FINDING CURES FOR KILLERS

FINDING CURES FOR KILLERS

diversity of nature for the benefit of mankind, specifically to treat opportunistic infections, which occur when pathogens take advantage of an impaired immune system,” Clark said. People with immune disorders include aIDs patients, cancer patients and organ recipients.

“ there’s a real role for the public sector—institutions and research at universities—to drive the science and discover how to fight these infections,” Clark said.

At the National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR) and The University of Mississippi Medical Center, UM researchers bring a strong dedication to advancing medicine to their searches for cures to the world’s top killers: cancer, heart disease, AIDS and malaria.

‘US VS. THEM’

Dr. alice Clark, the vice chancellor for research and sponsored programs and F.a.P. Barnard Professor of Pharmacognosy, has dedicated her professional career to searching for the drug pathways that aren’t likely to make millions of dollars. they will, however, vastly improve quality of life for millions of people worldwide.

“Our work is about trying to harness the chemical

Clark and her research team in the national Center for natural Products Research have been funded by the national Institutes of health for almost 25 years. In that time, the fight against infection has evolved. For one, the global spread of aIDs, increased cancer rates and more successful organ transplants have increased the number of people susceptible to opportunistic infections. But because of the nature of opportunistic infections, Clark knows there will always be new battles to fight.

“When I first started in the late ’70s and early ’80s, there was a mind-set that you would discover an antibiotic and it would be useful forever. But the antibiotic era had only been in place for about 25 years,” Clark said. “We were just beginning to understand the magnitude of the resistance problem. now we realize that drugresistant pathogens are always evolving, and we have to anticipate that and devise a way to defeat them.

“It’s a constant struggle—us vs. them—and we’re always trying to stay ahead of them a little bit.”

Dr. Marc Slattery dives in search of undersea samples.

HUNTING AND GATHERING

Clark and the natural Products team aren’t looking to invent one drug to fight infection; they’re searching for many different chemical pathways to fight infection. to find promising chemical compounds, the nC nPR scientists might partner with agriculturists from the UsDa, they might gather local woodland products at the university’s Field station, or they might dive the coral reefs off hawaii.

Dr. Marc slattery chose his career well. When he’s not at nC nPR researching chemical pathways, he’s scuba diving in a remote, exotic tropical location to bring

undersea samples back to Mississippi for chemical compound analysis.

so far, about 10 percent of the thousands of samples the team has gathered have shown promising biomedical activity. While that might not sound like much, consider this: Of the land-based plants that nC nPR scientists have analyzed, only one-half of 1 percent are considered promising.

“Unusual chemical compounds that are a part of the marine environment just aren’t found in the terrestrial environment,” slattery said. “We’re getting really significant differences in terms of chemical structure than anything you find in land-based plants.”

searching marine organisms for potential medicinal compounds makes sense. In order to survive a more hostile, bacteria-laden environment, marine creatures

Dr. Alice Clark, UM pharmacognocist and vice chancellor for research and sponsored programs

have evolved with their own defense systems.

“If you’re attached to the bottom of the ocean, you can’t run away from predators, and you can’t migrate away from disease,” slattery said. “Marine organisms have to develop chemical defense mechanisms.”

a mollusk’s or sponge’s chemical defense mechanism may provide a defense mechanism for humans, as well, in the form of new antibiotics or anti-cancer drugs.

the type of research slattery and his team are conducting has existed only for the past 20 years or so. Coincidentally, that’s about the same amount of time it generally takes for a chemical compound to go from a field sample to a drug on pharmacists’ shelves.

PLANT CHEMISTRY

since 1968, the University of Mississippi has maintained the nation’s only legal marijuana farm through a grant from the national Institutes of health’s (nIh) national Institute on Drug abuse (nIDa). In that time, the project has provided marijuana and its compounds to researchers around the country conducting hhsapproved studies1 of the plant, its chemical components, and their potential beneficial and harmful effects.

elsohly joined the project when he came to Ole Miss in 1976 and has been Marijuana Project director since 1980. In the ’80s and early ’90s, elsohly’s work

focused on analyzing marijuana samples seized by the Dea to develop a marijuana “fingerprinting” system that is still being used to trace crops to their sources globally. the responsibility of analyzing the material for the Dea also provided UM researchers the opportunity to study a wide variety of plants leading to a better understanding of the many chemicals found in Cannabis

In recent years, with some support from nIh, elsohly and other UM researchers have studied Cannabis to develop new medicines and new ways of delivering the chemical compounds in marijuana, particularly

Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly, director of the university's Marijuana Project

tetrahydrocannabinol ( thC), to treat a range of chronic conditions—from nausea due to chemotherapy for cancer patients to neuropathic pain for multiple sclerosis patients.

UM has patented and licensed to a pharmaceutical company a thC suppository to deliver to cancer patients the potential medicinal benefits of marijuana without the undesirable side effects.

“Developing new drugs and delivery systems, as well as a better understanding of the pharmacology and toxicology of marijuana, is dependent upon a reliable and consistent source of high-quality, research-grade Cannabis, ” elsohly said. “and that’s where we come in— we have a strong program that provides plant material to the research community.”

SPEEDING THE PROCESS

at first glance, the research conducted in Dr. greg tschumper’s lab doesn’t appear to have much to do with drug design or discovery.

tschumper is a computational chemist who uses supercomputers to study the interactions between molecules in order to better understand how drugs interact with molecules in our bodies. But while that doesn’t sound as appealing as scuba diving for a cancer cure with slattery, tschumper—and other researchers like him on campus—understand how the molecules interact, which can help reduce the time it takes to get the latest wonder drug onto the shelf at your local pharmacy in two important ways. First, by understanding how the drug molecule interacts with molecules in our bodies, medicinal chemists can design more effective, safer drugs. second, by understanding the molecular interactions of chemical compounds, new pathways for synthesizing new drugs can be devised.

1For studies involving human participants, marijuana is provided only for approved NIH-supported research, or clinical research that has been reviewed by an HHS committee comprising representatives from appropriate NIH Institutes and the FDA. Investigators must also have a current Investigational New Drug (IND) application on file with the FDA and be registered with the DEA.

Dr. Greg Tschumper uses supercomputers to study how molecules interact.

here’s how it might work.

“Let’s say a drug company has someone in the amazon rain forest, and they find a plant that produces a molecule that’s the cure for some form of cancer,” said tschumper. “at some point, the company needs to make a lot of the chemical compound in the plant that is the magic cure. the problem is, if you ask 10 different chemists how to make the drug, you get up to 10 different answers.”

Rather than spending a tremendous amount of money trying all 10 schemes, each of which could take anywhere from six months to a couple of years, a computational chemist can analyze all of them in a matter of weeks and identify the most promising synthetic routes, tschumper said. By picking the top two or three, the company can potentially save millions of dollars and more quickly move the process to its ultimate goal— cures.

Dr. Chris McCurdy, associate professor of medicinal chemistry, uses similar methods to develop new treatments for crippling addictions to methamphetamines, cocaine, heroin, and other stimulants and opiates.

McCurdy uses his research on chemical interactions to design and synthesize chemicals from natural products known to affect the brain and central nervous system. Backed by part of a $12 million grant from nIh to the school of Pharmacy, McCurdy has already achieved preliminary success using the chemicals in kratom, a natural product from thailand, to develop treatments for heroin addicts. another $1.25 million grant from the nIh (nIDa) goes directly to McCurdy’s work in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry to fund his revolutionary discovery of a new chemical treatment for methamphetamine addiction. the chemical treatment is in pre-testing phase on animal subjects at nIDa.

“nIDa is really excited about the possibilities,”

McCurdy said. “Currently, the only treatment for meth addicts is behavior modification. With a drug as powerful as meth, that’s often not enough. this chemical blocks meth’s stimulant and neurotoxic effect, and protects against neural damage.”

Without the brain-damaging high, the addict might be able to break the cycle and then potentially heal. McCurdy said that, in the course of his research, he’s also discovered that some of the same chemicals he’s synthesized may have potential to treat depression and psychosis.

FIGHTING FOR MISSISSIPPI

In 2008, for the third consecutive year, Mississippi has had the highest obesity rate in the nation. as of 2008, it also has the highest rate of cardiovascular disease, as well as skyrocketing rates of diabetes, kidney disease and hypertension.

Mississippi needs Dr. John hall.

at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC), hall is arthur C. guyton Professor and chair of physiology and biophysics, director of the Center of excellence in Cardiovascular-Renal Research and associate vice chancellor for research.

Most importantly for the state of Mississippi, hall is one of the country’s foremost experts on cardiovascular and renal physiology, mechanisms of hypertension and obesity-related cardiovascular disease.

UMMC actually has a storied research history in cardiovascular disease, dating back to Dr. arthur guyton’s work in the 1950s. all medical students know guyton as the man who wrote the Textbook of Medical Physiology. hall co-authored the textbook, the world’s leading physiology book, for the last three editions with guyton. the Medical Center also has one of the country’s longest-running program project grants from the national heart, Lung, and Blood Institute—more than 40 years. the work at UMMC has had a major impact on understanding the treatment of cardiovascular disease, including hypertension and heart failure.

Dr. Chris McCurdy

hall has studied most, if not all, of the renal control mechanisms that maintain normal arterial pressure or that cause high blood pressure. his groundbreaking quantitative study changed the way doctors approach high blood pressure by establishing that hypertension is caused by abnormal kidney function.

to help Mississippians combat this deadly relationship and other illnesses, UMMC has established the Delta health alliance to provide obesity and diabetes management and maintain electronic health records for people who don’t have regular access to a doctor and live in one of the poorest regions in the country.

the next step, hall said, is to develop an Obesity and Diabetes Research Center at the Medical Center. “Obesity is the leading cause of hypertension and

diabetes, which are the most important risk factors for heart disease, stroke and kidney disease. Mississippi, unfortunately, leads the nation in obesity and cardiovascular disease. therefore, what better place is there to establish a world-class research center for obesity, nutrition and related diseases that will translate results from basic research to the prevention and treatment of these disorders?”

Because UMMC is a teaching hospital, its reach extends far beyond Mississippi. since the 1960s, more than 30 cardiovascular scientists trained at UMMC have gone on to become department chairs and leading minds in universities and research centers around the world.

Dr. John Hall's breakthrough discovery linking hypertension to abnormal kidney function has altered how high blood pressure is managed.

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RETHINKING SCHOOL LUNCH

RETHINKING SCHOOL LUNCH

schools are making new choices to make sure every child has a healthful, nutrient-dense meal. “school nutrition programs have access to the leanest ground beef available, use whole-grain flour and incorporate vegetables in more kid-friendly fare like pizza,” Oakley said.

“Feeding children wholesome meals at school is not for the faint of heart,” Oakley said. “It takes a lot to get kids to eat vegetables if they’ve never seen them before.”

The front line of the fight against childhood obesity is at the National Food Service Management Institute (NFSMI) at The University of Mississippi.

Founded by Congress in 1989 as part of the national school Lunch act, the institute trains and educates school nutrition providers around the country via seminars and workshops, satellite presentations, teleconferences, participation at professional meetings and conferences, and the nFsMI Web site.

“From nutrition to financial management to procurement—you name it, we help provide it,” said Dr. Charlotte Oakley, the institute’s executive director. “We take our research and use it to train competent professionals at all levels of food service, from the head of the state agency to the people who wash the dishes.”

More than 100,000 schools and child-care facilities can rely on nFsMI to provide training and research results that can help them manage their school nutrition programs. Lately, that means developing training that looks at how school nutrition programs can work with their communities to address childhood obesity.

Oakley said nFsMI began addressing the problem in the mid-’90s, creating training based on the Dietary guidelines for americans for planning school meals based on variety, balance and moderation.

“ the obesity problem is not just due to what children eat, and it’s certainly not all due to what they eat at school,” Oakley said. “But we can play a part in the solution.”

nFsMI produces a video training series that is available to schools around the country to promote healthy food choices. Called “Cooks for Kids,” the show is shot in a Food network style—a host travels to restaurants and school cafeterias to talk about good food. One episode, “Pizza with Pizzazz,” won a telly award.

“We made a large investment in ‘Cooks for Kids’ because we felt it was critical to address childhood obesity as a shared responsibility among the home, school and

Dr. Charlotte Oakley, director of the National Food Service Management Institute

(right) NFSMI encourages a lifelong relationship with good food.

community,” Oakley said. “ the show encourages a lifelong relationship with good food.”

It’s ironic, then, that an organization dedicated to the operation of child nutrition programs finds itself in the fattest state in the nation. to address obesity here at home in Mississippi, nFsMI is going beyond its federal mandate and working with the Delta health alliance. nFsMI and Delta health alliance provide special training to school nutrition programs that must provide healthful meals for groups of youngsters in the poverty-stricken Mississippi Delta that may include diabetic, overweight or even underweight children.

“In our state and others around the country, we have communities without grocery stores. the healthiest food available may be what children get at school,” Oakley said. “ that’s why a healthy, thriving, professional school nutrition program is so important for our children.”

Childhood obesity is a shared responsability among the home, school and community.

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STEMMING A VIOLENT TIDE

STEMMING A VIOLENT TIDE

University of Mississippi researchers work to make this violent world a little safer with technologies that detect land mines more efficiently than before, can tell the difference between a nuclear test or a little dynamite in North Korea, pinpoint a sniper or an improvised explosive device, or retrofit buildings into armored fortresses.

PROTECTING THE INNOCENT

In the throes of battle, fields are seeded with land mines aimed at picking off soldiers. But many are never triggered, lying underground for years until they are set off by an innocent person—a child playing or a farmer plowing a field.

an estimated 80 million land mines are buried in 88 countries around the world, from Mozambique to France (where bombs from both World Wars are occasionally triggered). thousands are killed or maimed every month. some of the top physicists in the world work for Ole Miss, many at the groundbreaking national Center for Physical acoustics (nCPa). One of them, Dr. Jim sabatier, developed the multibeam laser Doppler vibrometer, which allows scientists to see through dirt using sound waves. On the screen, land mines appear as hot red blobs, much easier to detect and remove than with traditional techniques like metal detectors, which can’t see plastic, or ground-penetrating radar, which doesn’t

work in wet soil or other adverse conditions.

the first version of the laser Doppler vibrometer sprawls across a table in a lab at nCPa, a chain of lasers and mirrors that look like lines of dominoes. the next version fits into a big, bulky, heavy metal box. the latest, more accurate than the first, is contained in a heavy—but much, much smaller—box.

the device is much more accurate than any land mine detection tactic used before, clearing fields with a 99.7 percent accuracy, called "unmatched" by the U.s army. the success of the device led to the establishment of the Institute for humanitarian Demining, which aims to constantly improve the detection system, look for new solutions and use a multidisciplinary approach to address all the problems associated with the use of land mines.

BATTLEFIELD READY

nCPa is a designated army Center of excellence in acoustics, providing the army with a continuous source of expertise and innovation.

One such innovation is applying nCPa’s land mine detection technology to locate improvised explosive devices before they explode. this adaptation of the proven system is more complex than it sounds. to find a land mine, the detection device points straight down through soil in a static environment. But an IeD is not buried, it is just hidden. Identification must be instantaneous for the soldiers in the field.

“Using the same technology to scan for explosives at

some distance and beside the device presents a number of challenges that will take more research to overcome,” sabatier said. “ there’s more distortion beaming to the side rather than straight down. at the same time, the scan has to be done much more quickly. so we have a lot of work to do.”

an anti-sniper detection system is already being used on the ground in Iraq.

“ the combination of rugged wireless microphones and gPs has the potential to instantly pinpoint a sniper’s location,” said Dr. Kenneth gilbert, the lead researcher on the project. “ the nCPa atmospheric research group is actively working on making such a system a reality.”

Dr. Jim Sabatier with the prototype of the multibeam laser Doppler vibrometer he developed

ARMOR FOR BRICKS AND MORTAR

advances in body armor save the lives of soldiers every day. a research team in the school of engineering aims to do the same for buildings using nanotechnology.

Dr. Chris Mullen, a civil engineering professor who is also the director of the Center for Community earthquake Preparedness, developed a computer model that simulated the effects earthquakes of different magnitudes would have on buildings—first for a campus project, and then for the federal and state emergency management agencies.

Using that model as a jumping-off point, Mullen and his civil and mechanical engineering colleagues are trying to mitigate the effects of a terrorist blast on buildings in a project funded by the Department of homeland security. Mullen’s model simulates the impact of a blast on a building that is not protected first. then the team calculates the impact after the building is retrofitted with a cost effective, blast-resistant nanoparticle-reinforced material.

Mechanical engineering professors Dr. ahmed

al-Ostaz and Dr. P.R. Mantena are working to design the blast-resistant material at the nano level. the materials team then must work out how best to apply it, Mullen said. should they make it a spray paint? adhesive strips?

(top) Using geospatial date, UM researchers can identify and estimate the local intensity of hazards within an area; inventory key infrastructure such as buldings, bridges, utility networks and roads; and quantify their fragility.

(bottom) Dr. Chris Mullen, director of the Center for Community Earthquake Preparedness

a large-scale flexible wallpaper? after choosing how best to apply the protectant, the team will use computer simulations to decide how to retrofit an entire building.

“ the blast simulation indicates which part of the building will fail—the distribution of the damage,” Mullen said. Based on those results, the team can develop retrofitting strategies for homeland security. although the homeland security project doesn’t have anything to do with earthquakes, the work Mullen is known for, he says this new direction really isn’t that different.

“ earthquakes do pretty wicked stuff to buildings in a different way,” Mullen said. “With better structures and more robust designs, buildings can be multihazardproof—whether it’s a terrorist blast, an earthquake or a hurricane. It’s all related.”

(top) Dr. Ahmed Al-Ostaz (with plaque) and (middle) Dr. P.R. Mantena, professors of mechanical engineering

(bottom) Dr. Sam Wang, director of the National Center for Computational Hydroscience and Engineering

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SEEKING UNIVERSAL SECRETS

SEEKING UNIVERSAL SECRETS

After years of delays, waiting, setbacks and lawsuits about the possible destruction of the universe, the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, went online this summer.

In January, seven Ole Miss physicists held their breath as the final piece of the Compact Muon solenoid (CMs) particle detector was lowered into the Large hadron Collider’s (LhC) experimental cavern 328 feet underground. the seven Ole Miss physicists—Drs. Lucien Cremaldi, Jim Reidy, Rob Kroeger, Don summers, Breese Quinn, Romulus godang and David sanders—helped design and build hardware for the CMs hadron Calorimeter, which sits within a large 40,000-gauss superconducting magnet. the group also helped design the CMs inner particle tracker.

since 1991, Ole Miss physicists have received grants from the Department of energy to work on the CMs

(top) Construction of the CERN Large Hadron Collider draws international attention.

(bottom) UM physics professors are among some 1,500 scientists from 155 institutions in 36 countries working on experiments in CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

for the collider, a project some call the world’s largest scientific instrument.

so, what is a Compact Muon solenoid particle detector? It contains fragile detectors to help identify and measure the energy of particles created in collisions within the large machine.

STILL LOST? WHAT’S THE POINT?

“as we move to the new experiments at CeRn ’s Large hadron Collider, we have the possibility of discovering the particle or particles that gave rise to the mass of all particles in the universe,” Cremaldi said. “ this particle, the higgs boson, has remained hidden ever since it was predicted to exist over 40 years ago by peter higgs and others. the Large hadron Collider has the opportunity to discover the higgs boson in a simple or more complex form.”

Dr. Lucien Cremaldi, UM particle physicist, holds one of the first models of a mechanical and cooling frame fabricated at UM for the Forward Pixel detector. The detector is currently installed in the CMS experiment at the LHC. The experiment is designed to search for new forms of matter existing in the early universe.

Assembling the Large Hadron Collider

the science involved in building the collider is complex. although Cremaldi and his Ole Miss colleagues are working at the forefront of the world’s greatest scientific experiment, very few everyday people know anything about the CeRn Large hadron Collider. It’s easier to get our attention with a new headache medicine or new electronics than highminded subjects like the origin of the universe.

But the CeRn experiment and others like it tend to have surprising practical research applications to everyday life. During the process of building cutting-edge esoteric technology, revolutionary techniques are discovered that can be used in other disciplines.

Cremaldi provided an example of one such application. “at the Large hadron Collider, we were involved

in designing a silicon pixel detector [related to CCD cameras] in which over a million pictures can be taken each second,” he said. “ these superfast cameras are being used by the pharmaceutical industry to image new drugs at X-ray and synchrotron radiation facilities.

“ these devices may also play a role in national security or in medicine. the high rate at which images can be attained could mean taking a patient’s X-ray would take a fraction of the time that is now needed, thereby significantly reducing radiation exposure,” he added.

the UM physics professors are among some 1,500 scientists from 155 institutes in 36 countries working to build CeRn ’s Large hadron Collider. for Cremaldi, the Large hadron Collider is the culmination of 20 years of work with fermilab and CeRn. Once the collisions start producing data, however, his work begins anew.

“ the potential is enormous,” Cremaldi said. “We are beginning a new era of enlightenment in particle physics.”

Dr. Robert Kroeger

Dr. Breese Quinn

THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI CHANGE AGENTS

EDITOR

AMY LOWE LEWIS

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

SABRINA BROWN, EMILY HOWORTH, CHRISTY WHITE

WRITER

ANGELA ATKINS, SOUTHERN GROWTH STUDIO

DESIGNERS

CARRA HEWITT, SHERVAN JASSIM

PHOTOGRAPHERS

© CERN, KEVIN BAIN, ROBERT JORDAN, NATHAN LATIL

COVER ILLUSTRATION

RUSS CHARPENTIER

For additional information on research being conducted at The University of Mississippi or if you would like to become involved by helping support a particular research effort, please contact the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research at 662-915-7583 or changeagents@research.olemiss.edu.