Can Science Ward Off a Global Drug Crisis? the Search
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Wisconsin’s Magazine for the Life Sciences • Summer 2009 grow agriculture • food • health • environment The Search for Antibiotics Can science ward off a global drug crisis? COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURAL & LIFE SCIENCES University of Wisconsin-Madison THE HANDS THAT MILK • FOLLOWING THE WATER • CALL OF THE WILD THINGS Volume 2, Issue 3 • Summer 2009 grow Wisconsin’s Magazine for the Life Sciences 14 INVISIBLE HANDS With nearly half of its dairy jobs now held by foreign workers, Wisconsin is in the midst of a dramatic new wave of immigration. What does this change mean for the industry and the state? By Michael Penn 20 THE DRUGS START HERE As many of the world’s most critical antibiotics grow old and ineffective, scientists are launching a new campaign to find and develop the next generation of microbe fighters. By Nicole Miller MS’06 28 WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN? CALS students come to the aid of the UW Arboretum, where a rare landscape is drowning under a deluge of stormwater. By Bob Mitchell BS’76 Departments 4 IN VIVO 33 WORKING LIFE By Dean Molly Jahn Hanging out with real-life bat man Dave Redell 5 ON HENRY MALL The Grow Dozen: Alumni News from around making a difference in the the college study of wildlife 10 FIELD NOTES 38 BACK LIST China: Understanding a rare Five things everyone monkey’s lifestyle should know about South Africa: An “orange” mosquitoes diet to prevent blindness Kosovo: Restarting the dairy 39 FINAL EXAM industry from the ground up Students took it … can you? 12 LIVING SCIENCE Allen Centennial Gardens ON THE COVER: Petri dishes director Ed Lyon on why containing antibiotic-producing gardens still matter microbes await inspection in Jo Handelsman’s bacteriology lab. GARDEN VARIETY: Peonies aren’t the only Photo by Wolfgang Hoffmann thing blooming at CALS’ Allen Centennial Gardens. New director Ed Lyon is replenishing the garden’s plantings and its mission. Read more about Lyon’s vision on page 12. Summer 2009 grow 3 In Vivo grow Dean Molly Jahn Volume 2, Issue 3 Summer 2009 Editor My Own Miracle Drug Michael Penn Writers Nicole Miller MS’06, In this issue, you’ll read an update on a topic that has special significance for Bob Mitchell BS’76 me. Antibiotics saved my life. Editorial Assistants When I was 13, I was diagnosed with a potentially fatal staph infec- Rebecca Bock, Camille Rogers, Christa Seidl tion. This is a sneaky and dangerous bug, and by the time the infection was Design detected and recognized, I was critically ill, facing major surgery and an Diane Doering uncertain recovery. My only hope for recovery was the drug dicloxicillin, Marketing which was prescribed and administered in massive doses. It worked. And I Sevie Kenyon BS’80 MS’06 survived, one more life saved by these miracle drugs. Photography All photographs by Wolfgang Today, it is hard for most of us to imagine a world without antibiotic Hoffmann BS’75 MS’79, except as pharmaceuticals. And yet it’s been considerably less than a century since they noted. were recognized and introduced into clinical use, thanks in no small part CALS ADMINISTRATION to pioneering work on our campus. But if we are not careful, we may find Molly Jahn, Dean Irwin Goldman PhD’91, Vice Dean ourselves much too close to that world again. The rising levels of microbial Ben Miller, Associate Dean resistance to our best antibiotics—and the dearth of new antibiotics in the for External Relations drug pipeline—are a startling wake-up call that could imperil our ability to INTERACTING WITH CALS treat disease in humans and animals. Alumni: Office of External Relations, 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, It’s hard for most of us to imagine a world without antibiotic WI 53706 Phone: (608) 262-1251 Email: [email protected] pharmaceuticals. But if we are not careful, we may find www.cals.wisc.edu/alumni/ Prospective students: ourselves much too close to that world again. Rebecca Duffy, CALS Under- graduate Programs and Services, 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, WI 53706 Phone: (608) 262-3003 Fortunately, we’ve heard that wake-up call. At CALS, we have one of the Email: [email protected] brightest and most creative communities of microbiologists in the world, and www.cals.wisc.edu/students/ they are fast uncovering promising new antibiotic compounds. But they are Business contacts: doing more than that. By taking the next step and refining the compounds Office of Corporate Relations, 455 Science Drive, Suite 230, that may be significantly valuable in clinical use, they are advancing a new Madison, WI 53711 Phone: (608) 263-2840 model of drug development that can channel more of these medications into Email: [email protected] the marketplace, where they can save more lives. www.ocr.wisc.edu To me, this work offers a wonderful illustration of how our college To make a gift to CALS: Brian Hettiger, UW Foundation, continues to do what it was invented to do—to create real, lasting change in P.O. Box 8860, Madison, WI 53708 Phone: (608) 265-5893 people’s lives. Research does have the capacity to save millions of lives, and I Email: Brian.Hettiger@ am living proof of that power. uwfoundation.wisc.edu www.uwfoundation.wisc.edu To contact the magazine: Grow Editor, E DITOR ’ S N OTE : We’re pleased to note that Grow has been collecting a little gold recently, winning 136 Agricultural Hall, 1450 Linden Drive, Madison, awards in two national competitions. Grow was judged best magazine by the Association for WI 53706 Communication Excellence, an international group of communicators from land-grant universities Email: [email protected] www. cals.wisc.edu/grow/ g and research institutions. Grow writers Bob Mitchell, Nicole Miller and Michael Penn won the top three spots in the competition’s feature writing category. The magazine also won a gold medal for staff writing from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education, which represents professionals in alumni relations, communications and marketing. Thanks to everyone who has helped make Grow a success—especially our readers. College of Agricultural & Life Sciences University of Wisconsin-Madison 4 grow Summer 2009 On Henry Mall News from around the college Piling On Composting is taking a bite out of campus food waste. At restaurants and cafeterias, consumers have grown accustomed to seeing a line of waste containers for recycling glass, plastic and paper items. Important as those bins are for reducing the burden on landfills, they overlook a major source of waste: the food left on diners’ plates. Food accounts for about one-third of the trash Americans throw away, and most of it ends up in landfills. While food is generally more biodegradable than some of the other items in your trash can, it’s not environmentally harmless. Decomposing food produces methane, a greenhouse gas that is 22 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. In an effort to reduce those impacts, UW-Madison has launched a project to collect and compost food waste from campus eateries. Organized by We Conserve, a university-wide program that promotes environmental stew- ardship practices, the project aims to compost more than 400 tons of food waste annually belong in a compost heap, especially meat and dairy At West Madison when fully implemented. products. So it’s important that discarded food Agricultural Research “UW has been composting for years with other wastes are separated to keep out things that don’t Station, yesterday’s organic materials, but we’ve found that great synergy decompose well,” he says. To help guide consumers, lunch becomes tomor- can exist by adding food. It can really improve the We Conserve constructed a food-collection station row’s soil. quality of the compost product,” says Faramarz at the Grainger café that uses signs and pictures to Vakili, program director for We Conserve. designate the proper containers for different kinds Food-collection stations are now in place at of food. Vakili says the station has helped boost the Grainger Hall and in the kitchens at Memorial number of people participating in the project, and Union, which prepares food for all Union delis he’s confident that diners will catch on and embrace on campus. Spoiled and unused food from both food sorting in time. sites is taken to CALS’ West Madison Agricul- “Effective composting takes time and effort, and tural Research Station, where superintendent Tom while we would love everyone on campus to create Wright oversees the composting process. their own, that’s just not possible,” says Wright. “So Wright says the project has presented some chal- this program is making it easy for them. All they have lenges, particularly in educating consumers about to do is give us their food, and we will do the work.” how to sort food for composting. “Not all foods —Camille Rogers Summer 2009 grow 5 On Henry Mall Still in Rotation A 44-year-old cropping study offers a window on sustainability. It’s said that with age comes wisdom. And for CALS’ long-running field trials at Lancaster Agricul- tural Research Station, wisdom means data. Established in 1966 to test the advantages of various crop rotations, the Lancaster trials have produced reams of feedback for producers as they weigh their planting decisions. One of the study’s key findings, for example, has been to show the prof- itability of a corn-soybean crop rotation, says Joe Lauer, an agronomy professor who has compiled 39 years of data from the trials. But as the study enters its 44th season, its longev- ity is paying off in other ways.