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| Alumni Association Home > Minnesota Magazine > Past Issues > 2005 > January-February 2005 | ||||||||
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| The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum's new visitor center is designed to evoke a European hamlet. Photograph courtesy of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. |
The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum’s new visitor center is the sort of structure that deserves to sit on the grounds of the largest public garden in the Upper Midwest. The environmentally friendly building, with an exterior meant to evoke a European hamlet and an interior that echoes the original visitor center’s rustic feel, opens January 25. The 45,000-square-foot, $18 million center connects by skyway with the Snyder Building, the arboretum’s original visitor center, and includes a great hall, several meeting rooms, classrooms with a teaching garden, a large restaurant, and a display gallery. Outside, six terraces and gardens surround the facility and offer a preview of what visitors will find throughout the arboretum.
The visitor center was designed to “bring the outdoors in” via large windows as well as an indoor garden area. The opening coincides with an indoor “miniature garden” display featuring a collection of tiny houses and accessories for outdoor gardens. It runs through February 27.
The windows are situated to make the best use of natural lighting, with an automated lighting system adjusting to changing conditions to provide a warm atmosphere and to save on electric costs. The center also features an innovative heating and cooling system that stores atmospheric heat and cold in the Earth’s shallow surface through a system of wells. The system will help even out the building’s temperature year-round while also saving on energy costs. The parking lot was expanded in 2003 and incorporates several features designed to slow down and clean up runoff.
The center’s $18 million cost was covered under the arboretum’s recently completed $65 million capital campaign. Campaign funds also helped pay for renovations of other structures and for the arboretum’s efforts to acquire nearby watershed properties.
The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum—with more than 1,000 acres of gardens, plant collections, and natural landscapes—is part of the Department of Horticulture’s research and outreach efforts. It is located nine miles west of Interstate 494 on Highway 5 in Chanhassen, about 25 miles west of the Twin Cities campus. The arboretum is open from 8 a.m. until sunset daily. Admission is $7; free for arboretum members, children under 16, and for everyone after 4:30 p.m. on Thursdays. For more information, visit www.arboretum.umn.edu.
Discoveries: U research findings
Weighty Findings
Stomach stapling and other weight-loss surgeries appear to offer the best hope for improved and lengthened life in people who are morbidly obese (more than 100 pounds overweight). According to a review led by a University of Minnesota researcher, weight-loss surgery improved or eliminated diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea, and high cholesterol in the vast majority of morbidly obese patients. Researchers also noted studies that found that morbidly obese patients could expect to live 12 years fewer than those at ideal weight, while losing just 9 kilograms (20 pounds) reduced the risk of obesity-related early death by 53 percent. Researchers reviewed 136 studies that included more than 22,000 patients. Patients lost an average of 61 percent of their excess weight, and 76 percent saw their diabetes disappear entirely after weight-loss surgery. Hypertension, sleep apnea, and cholesterol readings improved by 70 percent or more. Researchers estimate that two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese and that 5 percent are morbidly obese. Government reports list obesity as the second leading cause of preventable death. The new analysis was published in the October 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Building Better Blood
U researchers are one step closer toward creating safe and usable human blood out of embryonic stems cells. Embryonic stem cells are the earliest cells in a human embryo and appear to have the potential to turn into any type of cells in the human body. Although other researchers have been able to drive embryonic stem cells toward becoming blood, to do so they had to use animal-based “serums” that create severe reactions in some patients. The U’s team was able to get embryonic stem cells to take the first steps toward becoming blood without the use of the animal serums. According to lead researcher Dr. Dan Kaufman, the findings are an important step toward developing a source of virus-free blood cells, cells with rare blood types, and cells for marrow transplants when suitable donors are not available. The findings were published in the October issue of Experimental Hematology.
Tackling Tumors
University of Minnesota researchers have discovered a protein, Mcm10, that appears to be an indispensable part of cell division. Since uncontrolled cell division is the hallmark of cancerous tumors, researchers hope that learning how to disrupt this protein will lead to a way to stop tumor growth. In normal cells, Mcm10 protects and directs the enzymes that start cell division. But after identifying Mcm10, researchers created yeast cells without the protein and the yeast—which normally divides rapidly—failed to divide and grow. The research team is beginning experiments with animal blood cells to confirm the results as well as to learn more about how Mcm10 works. By learning more about the process, they hope to zero in on the best ways to disrupt Mcm10 in the human body. The findings were published in the October 22 issue of the journal Molecular Cell.
Diet and Health Pioneer Dies at 100
Ancel Keys, one of the giants of science at the University of Minnesota, died in November at the age of 100. Keys, a University professor of physiology from 1937 until he retired in 1972, was widely known for his pioneering research into the connection between cholesterol and heart disease.
Keys worked in a space beneath Memorial Stadium, and his Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene was the precursor to the School of Public Health’s epidemiology division. Early in World War II, the U.S. War Department asked Keys to develop a simple, compact, nutritious meal for soldiers. His creation became known as K rations—the K for “Keys.” Later, when it became clear that millions of starving people would emerge from the ruins of World War II, Keys conducted a starvation study (conscientious objectors volunteered to undergo food deprivation) to learn how best to rehabilitate starved populations.
After the war, Keys studied diet and heart
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| Ancel Keys on the cover of Time in 1961. |
Keys was featured on the cover of Time magazine in 1961 following publication of the book. “People should know the facts,” Keys told the interviewer. “Then if they want to eat themselves to death, let them.”
Enduring Words on Elmer L. Andersen
“I don’t think there are very many people in the entire history of the University of Minnesota who have been so important to our development,” University President Robert Bruininks said of Elmer L. Andersen (B.A. ’31, hon. Ph.D. ’82), who died November 15 at the age of 95. Andersen, a former Minnesota governor and chair of the board of regents, was a tireless champion of the University and of government working for the public good. The Elmer L. Andersen Library is named in honor of his support for education and his lifelong love of books. Several former University presidents commented on Andersen’s legacy shortly after his passing:
“Elmer Andersen was a tireless advocate for the public good—for investment in education and human capital. He was a progressive voice for reform and change throughout his entire life. I cannot think of very many leaders in my life that I’ve respected more and revered more than Governor Elmer Andersen. Even when you had the briefest conversation with Governor Andersen, you knew that you were in the presence of somebody who was truly a wise person.”
—Bob Bruininks, president 2002–present
“Never again will there be a person more dedicated to Minnesota and its great university than the remarkable Elmer L. Andersen. To his dying breath he was thinking of ways to strengthen the University of Minnesota; it was the intellectual love of his life, and he showed it in countless ways. We will all miss him, but he will never be forgotten.”
—C. Peter Magrath, 1974–84
“Elmer himself had to work hard for an education and had come to realize fully what both private and public higher education mean to successive generations—and to the state and nation. [He was] always driven by his concern that the state should provide access to quality education for all who could benefit from it. Higher education in Minnesota owes him a deep debt of gratitude for his leadership in this matter.”
—Nils Hasslemo, 1988–97
“With his combination of wisdom, ideals, generosity, and a devotion to community, he showed what a statesman and public leader could be and should be. He was honest and gentle in his praise and in his criticism. This University has had no greater friend and guide, and this state has had no better citizen.”
—Ken Keller, 1985–88
Faculty Profile: David Hamlar, Jr.
Dr. David Hamlar, Jr., is a real “ask not what your country can do for you” kind of person. The always cheerful assistant professor of otolaryngology is also a craniofacial surgeon; a dentist; chair of the ear, nose, and throat department at Regions Hospital in St. Paul; a colonel in the Minnesota Air National Guard and commander of the 133rd Medical Group; and an international volunteer.
Somehow Hamlar never seems rushed. Smiling, as usual, he succinctly explains his impossible list of activities. “Service,” he says. “Service to the country. Service to people, especially indigent populations. We are really blessed in this country. When you go to other, developing countries, you see they have no medicine, little health care. You can’t see that and not go back and do more.”
Hamlar received early lessons in service from his father, a dentist who served in the military and worked with patients from all economic backgrounds. In 1978, at age 22, the younger Hamlar joined the National Health Service Corps, a government-sponsored organization that coordinates placing health-care workers in impoverished areas of the United States in exchange for tuition assistance or other benefits.
He earned his dental degree in 1981, and the following year, in Chillicothe, Ohio, Hamlar encountered dentists less motivated by service than he was. “Chillicothe had every dental specialty you can think of, but no one would treat poor people,” he recalls. “Indigent people had to drive to Columbus to get treatment. So I wrote a grant to set up a dental clinic for that population. I got the grant, we did good work, and pretty soon, we were treating rich and poor people.”
Successful but not satisfied, Hamlar went back to medical school. “I wanted to do more,” he explains. At medical school and his residency in ear, nose, and throat at Ohio State, Hamlar saw complex birth defects and tumors. “We removed the tumors and restored most patients’ function, but we weren’t treating the cosmetic-social aspects of the disease. I wanted to take that to the next level, so I did the facial plastics fellowship with Dr. Peter Hilger [a faculty member in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Otolaryngology]. I think it’s one of the best in the country.” Hilger’s fellowship is unique in that it offers a full range of experiences from traumatic injuries to birth defects to post-surgery cosmetic reconstruction.
Hamlar joined the Ohio National Guard in 1989 but transferred to the Minnesota Air National Guard in 1995 when he joined the University of Minnesota faculty. As a flight surgeon, he maintains the health of pilots on site in places like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Colombia, providing a full range of medical work as needed. Still not satisfied, Hamlar volunteered himself and his medical group for Air National Guard humanitarian missions to Ecuador and Belize.
His most recent service projects have been through Face-To-Face, the humanitarian arm of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery that focuses on doing surgery and training health professionals in developing countries. With Face-To-Face, Hamlar has been twice to China and most recently to Vietnam.
Hamlar breezes over a 2004 schedule that has seen him out of the country as much as in, and then touches on yet another potential project—in Minnesota, he hopes. “Like the project in Ohio, I’d love to start a clinic for underserved populations—indigent people either in the city or rural areas,” he says. “That’ll happen someday.”
—Sarah Barker