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Learn more about research and technology at UC and support your colleagues at Showcase 2008. Doors open to Tangeman University Center’s (TUC) Great Hall Friday morning at 8:30 a.m.
Moira Gunn, PhD, author and host of “TechNation” and “BioTech Nation,” radio programs airing on National Public Radio’s Satellite Radio channels NPR Now and NPR Talk, will make a special presentation at 9 a.m. in the TUC Cinema.
As always, we welcome your feedback and encourage you to check out research.uc.edu for the latest research magazine, news and announcements.
Sandra Degen, PhD
Vice President for Research
NEWS/GRANTS
Research Data Card
The Office of Research recently developed a wallet-sized data card highlighting fiscal year 2007 facts and figures. The card was distributed to deans and department chairs and several others around the university. If you’d like a copy of the data card to keep handy, please e-mail Linda Minton at linda.minton@uc.edu or pick one up Friday at Showcase 2008. You can also access the data card online at uc.edu/ucResearch/Facts_and_Figures.html. All 2007 data is also available at srs.uc.edu or by downloading the December 2007 issue of UC Research (.pdf).
Register Now for Grant-Writing Workshops
Registration is now open for the next series of grant-writing workshops. Several sessions will be offered, including a general session on grant writing, an intensive grant-writing workshop, writing winning revisions and writing for biomedical publications. Two additional sessions, one on National Institutes of Health (NIH) Career Development Awards (NIH K Awards and F32s) and one on National Science Foundation CAREER Awards will be offered. Sessions begin in April. For more information or to register, visit uc.edu/ucResearch/GrantWritingWorkshop.html.
IP Office Realignment
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO), led by Ann Chasser, associate vice president for intellectual property, was recently realigned to better serve the university community. In December 2007, Ellen Monson, PhD, was named director of technology transfer and commercialization. She is responsible for the day-to-day management of technology transfer at UC. Monson—who joined the office in 2006 as a senior licensing associate—will now oversee both the medical and physical sciences portfolios for the university. She brings with her a wealth of experience in academia, with a PhD in biology from the University of California–Davis and a post doc at Princeton and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Monson was a research scientist and senior scientist at Eli Lilly and a senior scientific analyst at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center before joining UC.
Geoffrey Pinski, JD, was recently promoted to senior licensing associate. Pinski worked as a student in the Intellectual Property Office in 2005 while attending law school at UC. He joined the staff immediately upon graduation and is now responsible for case management of invention disclosures, review of the intellectual property sections of industrial sponsored agreements and implementation of the UC-IPO database.
Sasha Simms joined the office in January and is responsible for material transfer agreements (MTA) and confidentiality agreements and compliance reporting on existing UC licensed technologies. Simms previously worked as a grant administrator in the cell and cancer biology department and in the Office of Sponsored Programs.
Other Intellectual Property team members include Dan O’Neill, associate director for physical sciences, Marty Ludwig, director of trademarks and licensing and Mary Kay Tensing, administrative assistant. Daniel Kanter, MD, is also working with the Intellectual Property Office to help identify new biotechnology business development opportunities between the east and west campuses. For more information, visit www.ipo.uc.edu.
New Grants Awarded in February
Writing winning grants is tough. We understand the hard work that goes into preparing a proposal and want to make sure that effort doesn’t go unnoticed. Check out your great work—and that of your colleagues—at uc.edu/ucresearch/new_grant_winners.html. GREEN BITS
The university is working collaboratively with four other major organizations in the Greater Cincinnati area to reduce its carbon footprint. There are several things you can do in labs and offices to improve energy and waste management. Research Update—with the help of Eric Gruenstein, PhD, professor of molecular genetics—provides monthly “greening” tips for research faculty and staff. This month, Gruenstein looks at the office at work.
Tip #3—Greening the MSB
On March 18, the Faculty Forum will have a discussion of things that might be done to make the Medical Sciences Building (MSB) a more environmentally friendly place to work. The MSB is perhaps UC’s most expensive building to operate. One reason, of course, is that it’s a big building. But beyond that, in order to prevent contamination in one lab from spreading throughout the building, our conditioned air is not recirculated. Thus, air is taken in, filtered, heated or cooled, humidified or dehumidified, delivered to the labs and offices and then blown out the roof. Sitting as we do near the pinnacle of the energy consumption pyramid, we have some interesting questions to answer, along with some real opportunities to make a significant difference by making even relatively modest changes.
For example, suppose we changed the temperature settings of our building by a degree or two, allowing it to be a bit cooler in the winter and a bit warmer in the summer? Might this cause serious changes in the results of experiments done at ambient temperature? Would it be uncomfortable? How much money would it save the university? How much would it reduce our greenhouse gas emissions?
Another example: the hallway lights in the MSB are on 24–7. Suppose at night and on weekends every other fixture was turned off. Would that constitute a significant danger or inconvenience? How much energy and money would it save? How long would it take to recover the cost of the necessary rewiring?
In the MSB we generate huge amounts of waste copy paper and cardboard cartons. Consider, if you will, the big grey carts being wheeled down the halls every morning piled almost to the ceiling with these recyclable materials. And yet, they are not recycled. Or consider the use of bottled water shipped from hundreds of miles away, packaged in plastic bottles which we also do not recycle, and served at most of our catered events. This in a city whose tap water is of extremely high quality.
At 4 p.m. Tuesday, March 18, we will discuss these questions and many others that I hope those who choose to attend the Faculty Forum will bring up. This will be a good time to make suggestions for greening this place where we spend so much of our time. The results of these discussions will be brought to the attention of the administration and the people who manage our building.
SPOTLIGHT
Ken Petren, PhD
As an active member of the research office, biology associate professor Ken Petren, PhD, is chair of the Research Grants Advisory Committee and serves on the Undergraduate Research Council. But as an educator and researcher himself, Petren spends a lot of time mentoring students and teaching about ecology, evolution and animal behavior. He travels each summer with a group of students to the Galápagos Islands where he studies speciation using Charles Darwin’s famed finches. He’ll lead a student trip to the Galápagos in 2009 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of a Species. Petren also studies lizards in his UC lab to understand the spread of invasive species and how this affects resident communities. A member of Scientists Promoting Evolution Education in Cincinnati, Petren gives several talks each year to museums and community groups about evolution and will be speaking this month at the 2008 Evening Lecture Series sponsored by the Society for Evolution Education. He’s currently working with colleagues in biological sciences and other UC departments and colleges to build a group on integrative behavior. Read more about Petren in the Fall 2006 issue of UC Research (.pdf).
EVENTS
Showcase 2008
Friday, March 7, 2008
8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Tangeman University Center (TUC)
Special Presentation by author and NPR Host Moira Gunn, PhD
9 a.m., TUC Cinema
www.uc.edu/showcase
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