Alumni Association Home > Minnesota Magazine > Past Issues > 2006 > January-February 2006

How does a young aerospace engineering professor wind up studying viruses, medical devices, auto parts, microscopic wind sensors, and more? For Richard James, all it took was getting involved with the U’s Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA). The internationally renowned think tank brings together experts in scientific fields to solve problems and find new intersections by exploring the basic mathematical underpinnings of their fields. The IMA, founded in 1982, recently received a $19 million National Science Foundation grant to carry on its work through 2010.

James, now the Russell J. Penrose Professor in Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics, came to an IMA program in the early 1990s shortly after being named a full professor at the University. He was studying metal alloys that changed shape slightly when exposed to energy but then would return to their original shape. By studying the mathematics behind these and other “shape memory” materials with mathematicians at the IMA and then with other U colleagues, James became a pioneer in “ferro-magnetic shape alloys”—materials that change shape when exposed to a magnetic field.

The alloys are still being refined, but experiments are under way to perfect them for use in devices where direct energy, such as electricity, heat, or force, are problematic—heart valves inside the human body, for example, or carburetors inside engines. “There’s just no other way [than using magnetics] to make things change shape remotely in such a dramatic way,” James says.

Other IMA collaborations have already borne fruit. Improved heart rhythm monitors and devices, a way to reduce long-distance telephone disconnections, cost-saving industrial methods, a more mobile robot based on insect movements, and several other advances are directly linked to IMA programs.

James recently served a term on the IMA board of directors, helping set annual topics around which most IMA programming revolves. The topic for 2005–06 is imaging. The IMA brings up to 1,000 visiting faculty and students a year to the top floor of Lind Hall. Large presentation rooms, open spaces for formal receptions or informal meetings over coffee, quiet workspaces, and numerous desks with powerful computers are all designed to foster collaboration and chance interactions that will lead to the next breakthrough. Half of the IMA participants are not mathematicians but come from other sciences.

“Math is the language of science,” IMA director Doug Arnold says, so it offers a common point for crossing disciplines. The IMA “has put Minnesota on the map in a lot of different [academic] communities,” attracting top faculty to the U. “It’s making Minnesota a more stimulating, more interdisciplinary university.”

James finds his work in shape alloys becoming increasingly interdisciplinary as well. With biochemists, James is currently studying a virus that changes shape, pierces the wall of a cell, and then returns to its original form. Piecing out how it stores the energy to make the transformation, as well as what signals the shape change, could lead to research on materials that can transform without external energy supplies. “Mostly what I do is observation and measurement and then build a theory,” James says. “Then I take it to my colleagues.” It’s the way interdisciplinary sciences has worked at the U for 20 years.

“They say interdisciplinary work is the wave of the future,” Arnold says, “but we’ve been doing it for 20 years.”

Sometimes the math applications are not only interdisciplinary, but also unexpected and unusual. A recent seminar resulted in models of disease transmission, pinpointing the most effective methods and moments to contain the spread of diseases in the case of a bioterror attack or a serious disease outbreak. This fall, an IMA member was on hand to help verify the size of giant soap bubbles blown on Northrop Mall in an attempt to set a world record. And in November, Arnold was asked to investigate a controversy regarding the world-record muskie, caught by a Wisconsin fisherman in 1949. Challengers—the fish was allegedly more than five feet long—asked Arnold to analyze a photograph of the fish and fisherman.

Arnold says he sees “the math behind everything; it’s almost insufferable.” He judged that it isn’t possible to know the exact size of the fish because of “projective geometry.” As any angler knows, the closer the fish is held to the camera, the larger it appears in relation to the person holding it. Arnold, who is “5-foot-10, with shoes and hair,” illustrated the effect by holding out in front of him a four-foot board that in a photo appeared to be nearly as tall as he is. From that geometric application, however, Arnold concluded that the fish was far shorter than its claimed size. “That’s another side of having the nation’s finest math institute,” Arnold says. “People come to you with all sorts of interesting things.

The public can view IMA programs several times a year at the Math Matters public lecture series. The next lecture, Artful Mathematics, is set for February 8.

Cancer-Killing Stem Cells

News out of the University of Minnesota Cancer Center this fall was all about creating “natural killer” (NK) cells that attack various types of cancers. In studies done on two federally approved embryonic stem-cell lines, researchers were able to generate NK cells, a type of white blood cell responsible for destroying viruses and tumor cells. NK activity is known to decrease with advancing stages of cancer, so increasing the number or strength of NK cells is a promising avenue for new cancer treatments.

“This is the first published research to show the ability to make cells from human embryonic stem cells that are able to treat and fight cancer, especially human leukemias and lymphomas,” said assistant professor Dan Kaufman of the U’s Stem Cell Institute and Department of Medicine. Kaufman, lead author on the study, added that this is the first study to show it is possible to drive stem cells to become NK cells, which could benefit not only cancer treatments, but also treatment of serious infections. The research was published in the October 15 edition of The Journal of Immunology. (Read more on this study here.)

On October 31, the National Cancer Institute announced $20 million in grants to the Cancer Center for both lab research and clinical trials on stem cells and NK cells. Three teams led by Philip McGlave, co-leader of the Cancer Center’s Translational Research Program, will look into the biology of stem cells and the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma with stem-cell transplants. Three other teams led by Jeffrey Miller, co-leader of the Transplant Biology and Therapy Program, will further investigate NK cells and the possibility of transplants from unrelated donors.

Better than the Patch

A vaccine being tested at the University shows great promise in getting people to quit smoking, even though that wasn’t the initial goal of the study. NicVax creates antibodies that bind to nicotine in the blood and prevents them from reaching the brain. “This process potentially reduces the pleasurable effects from smoking and reduces the addiction to nicotine,” said Dorothy Hatsukami (Ph.D. ’80), director of the University of Minnesota Cancer Center’s Transdisciplinary Tobacco Use Research Center. Researchers were evaluating the safety of NicVax, recruiting subjects who said they had no desire to quit. Yet 38 percent of subjects in the highest dose group self-reported that they had spontaneously quit for at least 30 days during the study. Significant, though smaller, percentages in the two lower-dose groups also spontaneously quit. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the vaccine manufacturer and reported in the November issue of Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics. (Read more on this study here.)

Don’t Burn the Burger

Avoiding charred red meat appears to lower the risk of pancreatic cancer, according to a University of Minnesota study. In surveying 192 patients with pancreatic cancer and 670 without, researchers concluded that people in the top 20 percent for consumption of well-done grilled or barbecued red meat had twice the risk of pancreatic cancer compared with those in the lowest 20 percent. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most fatal forms of cancer in the United States; it is the 11th most common cancer, but is the fourth most common cause of cancer death. Taking steps to avoid charring meat, and cutting off parts that do become charred, are among the recommendations of study author Kristin Anderson (M.A. ’91), a cancer epidemiologist in the School of Public Health.

Hmong School Readiness

Language barriers and low levels of education among Hmong parents in turn affect their children’s readiness for kindergarten, according to groundbreaking U research. Professor Zha Blong Xiong (M.A. ’97, Ph.D. ’00) of General College surveyed 303 Hmong parents and found that roughly 60 percent had less than a high school education, 60 percent speak Hmong at home, and 40 percent never speak English at all. Coming from such a dissimilar culture, Hmong parents are also often unaware of the difference they can make in getting their children ready for school. Among Xiong’s recommendations are improving access to English as a Second Language classes, asking employers to create incentives to take those classes, and having those classes introduce parents to pre-kindergarten curricula and provide take-home activities for the parent and child to do together. (Read more aboutthe study here.)

Manure and Antibiotics

Traces of antibiotics are turning up in produce, according to a University of Minnesota study published in the Journal of Environmental Quality. Chlortetracycline is commonly added to animal feed as supplements to promote growth. Some of the antibiotic is passed out in the animal’s manure, which might then be used as fertilizer or to improve soil. U researchers applied antibiotic tainted pig manure to soil growing corn, green onions, and cabbage. In each case small amounts of chlortetracycline were found in the vegetables—not on the outside or skin—and the amount increased with the concentration in the manure. Potential health risks include allergic reactions and an increase in resistant bacteria in people who eat the vegetables.

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