July 2015
Volume 2, Issue 7
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CSU Researchers
Receive $1.3 Million
R01 Grant from NIH
Meet CSU's New Faculty
CSU Scholar News
Featured Researcher
Video Series
CSU Researchers Receive $1.3 Million
R01 Grant from NIH
Dr. Moo-Yeal Lee, assistant professor, and Dr. Chandra
Kothapalli, associate professor, from the Department of
Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, have received a fouryear, $1.3 million award from the National Institutes of Health
for their proposal, entitled "Mechanistic Study of
Developmental Neurotoxicity on 3D Cultured Stem Cell
Microarrays."
Conor Mc Lennan Returns
to Faculty Position
News from the Technology
Transfer Office
Attend the Research Poster
Session on September 3rd
Mandatory Use of Cayuse
on January 1, 2016
NIH Releases
"Reproducibility" Website
Dr. Moo-Yeal Lee
Dr. Chandra Kothapalli
The R01 grant, or Research Project Grant, is the original and
historically oldest grant mechanism used by NIH, considered
one of the NIH's most competitive awards.
Understanding human toxicity has important implications for health and disease prevention.
Through this research project, Drs. Lee and Kothapalli will develop an improved in vitro human
toxicology system to directly test the effects of xenobiotic agents. Using innovative systems
including microarray chip technology and three-dimensional cultured human neural stem cells,
their research will decipher the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the effects of toxic
compounds. Read more here.
This federally funded proposal was developed with support from the Faculty Research and
Development (FRD) program from the Office of Research.
Meet CSU's New Faculty
Dr. Ungtae Kim, assistant professor in
the
Department
of
Civil
and
Environmental Engineering, joined CSU
in Fall 2014. Dr. Kim is an established
researcher, with more than 15 journal
papers and 30 conference proceedings
published in the field of hydrology and
water
resources
engineering. He
teaches hydrologic modeling, open
channel
hydraulics,
groundwater
hydrology,
and
water
resources
engineering.
Dr. Kim's research focuses on solving real-world problems in the field of water resources
engineering, watershed science, and environmental engineering by utilizing high performance
computing techniques. His current research project involves developing a stochastic cost
optimization toolkit (SCOToolkit) for optimal decision making in groundwater remediation
practices. The project is currently funded by the U.S. Department of Defense Strategic
Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP).
Dense non-aqueous phase liquid such as trichloroethene (TCE) has been used as a solvent for
degreasing and dry cleaning in many military bases around the world. Once TCE is released into
the environment, it can threaten drinking water sources for hundreds of years. Therefore,
properly engineered remedial practices (thermal mass removal, biodegradation, in-situ chemical
oxidation, etc.) are critical to protect and secure groundwater systems. The transport and fate of
contaminants is very complex, and currently employed engineering designs generally adopt
averaged measured parameters that result in over- or under-performance.
To combat these problems, Dr. Kim
developed SCOToolkit which utilizes a
semi-analytical method with parallel
computing schemes to better handle
uncertainty
while
also
reducing
processing time. SCOToolkit has been
applied to multiple contaminated sites at
military bases such as Dover AFB, Fort
Lewis, Lake Hurst, and Parris Island.
Results show potential cost-saving up to
30% while increasing success probability
compared to conventional non-optimized
design. Dr. Kim and his colleagues contribute to improving the DoD's environmental
performance, reducing costs, and enhancing and sustaining mission capabilities through this
project.
CSU Scholar News
Jearl Walker, professor in the Department of
Physics, has taught physics at CSU for 42
years but, surprisingly, has yet to get tired. His
first book, The Flying Circus of Physics, was
published soon after he arrived here and was
translated into at least 10 languages (with at
least one bootleg). The second edition,
published in 2006, is still being translated into
other languages but has already been
bootlegged in Persian in Iran.
In 1990 he took over the textbook that he used as a first year student at MIT. Since then he has
published seven editions of the book, which is the number one book for science and engineering
majors, both in the US and worldwide, with at least 16 translations. He is currently working on
the next version, which will be a fully interactive, online education product (sadly, print textbooks
are now disappearing). He has long been known in radio, television, and the press for his
dramatic demonstrations, such as plunging his wet fingers into molten lead as seen in the image
here, which is from his new video series with CSU. Thankfully he has not lost any fingers (so
far).
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Please share with us important news or updates on your research, scholarly, or creative
activities. Updates may be related to a paper that has been accepted for publication in a highimpact journal, a book you've just published, your work that will be exhibited at a prominent
institution, or other updates you wish to share with our office. Send details to j.yard@csuohio.edu.
Featured Researcher Video Series - Wendy Regoeczi
Research by Dr. Wendy Regoeczi is the
focus of the latest installment of the
Featured Researcher Video series.
Dr. Regoeczi is an associate professor in
the
Department
of
Sociology and
Criminology and is Director of the
Criminology Research Center. Her research
interests are in the area of violent crime,
particularly homicide, domestic violence,
and sexual assault. Much of her research has focused on homicide investigations and the factors
that influence whether and how police solve these crimes. We encourage you to learn more
about Professor Regoeczi's work, and to take a look at our previous Featured Researcher
Videos.
Conor McLennan Returns to Faculty Position
After three years in the Office of Research, Dr. Conor Mc Lennan,
associate vice president for research, has decided to return to his
faculty position in the Department of Psychology in the College of
Sciences and Health Professions, effective July 1, 2015.
Dr. Mc Lennan maintains an active research lab, the Language
Research Laboratory, and works with undergraduate, M.A., and Ph.D.
students. Our office appreciates his significant contributions to many
important initiatives in the past three years. The Office of Research is
currently looking for his successor.
Dr. Conor Mc Lennan
News from the Technology Transfer Office
CSU Patent News. Anti-thrombotic agent technology developed by Dr. Michael Kalafatis,
professor in the Chemistry Department, has received a clear patentability assessment and work
is underway preparing a provisional patent application. Dr. Wenbing Zhao, associate professor in
the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department, has submitted his "Discriminative
Human Motion Tracking" invention to the United States Patent and Trademark Office and
received Application No. 62/183515. The TTO has been approached by an early stage company
interested in licensing a virus and bacteria detection technology invented by Dr. Siu-Tung Yau,
professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department.
When do royalty payments end? Some faculty have asked this question. And while inventors
have tried to extend royalty payments past the life of a patent, a recent United States Supreme
Court ruling has upheld a long standing 1964 decision as highlighted here.
Medical Innovation Summit. CSU healthcare
innovators are encouraged to consider participating
in the 2015 Medical Innovation Summit hosted by
the Cleveland Clinic Innovations. The Summit will be
held at the Global Center for Health Innovation
Cleveland Convention Center and will draw
entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors,
providers, payers, researchers, clinical, medical affairs, regulatory and business development
executives.
Attend the Research Poster Session on September 3rd
The Office of Research encourages students, faculty, and staff to attend the 2015 Undergraduate
Research Poster Session on Thursday, September 3, 2015, from 10am - 2pm in the Student
Center Atrium. Students and faculty will discuss their research funded with a 2015
Undergraduate Summer Research Award. The Office of Research encourages undergraduate
and graduate students to become actively engaged in research.
Mandatory Use of Cayuse on January 1, 2016
Effective January 1, 2016, SPRS will no
longer accept Proposal Transmittal Forms
(PTF). All proposals must be submitted
through the Cayuse Grants Management
System. If you are not currently utilizing the
system, Teri Kocevar can provide one-onone training or group sessions. Please contact her at x3675 or by email m.kocevar@csuohio.edu
to schedule your training.
NIH Releases "Reproducibility" Website
Foundational to the scientific method is the notion that research
results should be rigorous and independently reproducible. The issue
of reproducibility has emerged as an important topic of conversation
during the past several years, with considerable attention in the life
and social/behavioral sciences. Discussions about it are occurring in
a wide array of venues, ranging from publishers and Federal
agencies to Congress and leaders of research institutions. Spurring
these activities are a number factors, including the open data
revolution, calls by many quarters for greater transparency and accountability, increasingly
complex research problems that require new experimental approaches, and evidence that the
results of many published studies cannot in fact be reproduced (as noted in a recent editorial,
the reproducibility of a result does not mean it is correct, nor does the lack of reproducibility
mean it is incorrect).
The National Institutes of Health released a new website offering principles and guidelines,
publications, training materials, and information intended to help researchers improve the rigor
and reproducibility of their research. This webpage helps address the growing need for
rigorously designed published preclinical studies that can be reproduced.
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