At Boston University 2009 University Boston at Esearch Office of the Provost U.S

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BU Professor Emeritus Wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry global business processes intellectual property s a e www.bu.edu/research Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program

Osamu Shimomura discovered what makes jellyfish glow i D

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23 P u t t i nt g o W o r k Aequorea victoria, the jellyfish from which Osamu Shimomura first purified green fluorescent protein. “ our two campuses.” andcollegesdepartments across and conversations among foster connections meaningful to leverage existing strengths and programs and targeted initiatives developing strong collaborative A t Boston University, we are features

P u t t i n g i D e a s Y e ar o f D arw i n I n f e c t i o u s A l z h e i m e r ’ s WAR t o W o r k D i s e a s e s & Parkinson’s inside 2009 from the

Vice President and Associate Provost for Research features

36 Spatial Relations Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy 40 Muslim Mosaic nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit 50 Beyond the Stacks lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum 54 Taking the Helm dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui 56 Everything Preserved blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit get more online augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer www.bu.edu/research adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh Archaeology  Journey into the Maya Underworld euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et Andrei E. Ruckenstein snapshots iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent Associate Provost and luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore Vice President for Research 17 SparkNotes for Surveillance te feugait nulla facilisi. Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue 25 Cells to the Rescue Linguistics nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum.  Creating video search for a sign language dictionary Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed 33 Smart Tissue diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation 34 Myth, Mexico, and the Movies ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie 39 He Speaks in Your Voice, American consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis Biology dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer 53 Immigrant Song In the field with BU's Bat Man  adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore 59 Multilingual Miracles magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation 60 Quantifying Conflict ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie Undergraduate Engineering consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan  It really is rocket science et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. facts & figures Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie 61 Award-Winning Faculty consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan 64 Boston University at a Glance et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Astronomy  Man on the Moon

2 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 3 Research War by Karine Abalyan

The Wide-Ranging Repercussions of War

In the past eight years, the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the larger “war on terror” have become such a persistent part of the national cognizance that, in some ways, these conflicts have also exhausted our attention and begun to fade from the public eye. But at Boston University, faculty members in a range of disciplines—including medicine, public health, law, theology, social work, and international relations—are closely examining these conflicts to determine how military organizations, the U.S. government, and the public at large might be better equipped to address war's ethical, legal, and psychological impact.

4 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 5 Research War

“The lawyers needed the doctors to carry out the torture,” says Annas, whose forthcoming book, Worst Case Bioethics, explores the dan- gers of using worst-case scenarios to make policy. “And I think the doctors needed the lawyers to tell them they were immune from war crimes prosecution if they participated in them.” His goal is to reverse this thinking and to make clear “that a physician does not escape from medical ethics obligations by putting on a uniform.” To do so, he proposes that doctors, lawyers, and military officers work together to protect human rights, strengthen democracy, and lift the threat of unethical behavior toward U.S. troops abroad. Faith's First Responders To this end, Annas and a fellow professor of health law, bioethics, and human rights, physician Michael Grodin, organized a series of military Military chaplains, who are exempt from documenting medical ethics workshops to give government leaders and high-ranking soldier visits, are often more likely than clinicians to military physicians the opportunity to discuss issues of medical ethics receive requests for help from service members expe- with human rights advocates, law professors, and medical ethics scholars, riencing symptoms of trauma. But unlike clinicians and other health professionals, chaplains are rarely offered as well as retired military physicians. the training they need to administer assistance. After more than a year of workshops, the Assistant Secretary of Seeing a need, Shelly Rambo, an assistant pro- Defense for Health Affairs joined these efforts, and the Department of fessor of theology, and Ellen DeVoe, an associate Defense agreed to fund a workshop on military medical ethics at the professor of social work, have partnered with military Institute of Medicine in fall 2008. The workshops also earned Annas an chaplains to design resources and coursework to invitation to speak at the annual meeting of the Department of Defense’s help chaplains-in-training address the spiritual and Medical Health Services. His presentation focused on the problem of break- religious implications of trauma. These resources First, do no harm: medical ethics must come before the mission for military physicians, ing hunger strikes at Guantanamo—a practice that he argues was used to will combine Rambo’s work on trauma in a religious says George Annas, a professor of health law, bioethics, and human rights. punish, not medically treat, detainees—and was well received by military context with DeVoe’s research on trauma and clinical medical professionals, including Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health practice, offering military chaplains an interdisciplinary Medical Ethics—No Exceptions Affairs, Dr. S. Ward Casscells, who said it prompted him to reconsider physi- approach to thinking about psychological injury. “I think it’s a very logical kind of marriage, if you cians’ participation in attempting to break hunger strikes. All’s not fair in love and war. From the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to the will, because when people are traumatized, so often In August 2009, Annas and another member of the medical eth- U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, in recent years military physi- what comes up are questions of faith,” says DeVoe. cians have been accused of ignoring medical ethics guidelines set forth in ics workshops are scheduled to address the new ethics subcommittee of “The mental health side of trauma work doesn’t always national and international codes such as the declarations on torture and the Defense Health Board, a body that advises the Secretary of Defense. address spirituality and faith questions very well.” hunger strikes of the World Medical Association. Ultimately, he would like to see the Department of Defense adopt “a very Rambo and DeVoe are now in the process of meet- “Accomplishing the mission is generally seen as the primary goal in clear policy on medical ethics” to avoid room for dangerous interpretation. ing with chaplains to determine the range of topics that “The lawyers needed the the military, and at least some military commanders believe that military “I’m quite hopeful that when we get new leadership at the Department are most pressing for chaplains, who are often the first physicians should make exceptions to their medical ethics principles if of Defense,” Annas says, “they will be studying everything that happened people to whom service members turn when coping with post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal thoughts, doctors to carry out the torture. the success of the military mission requires it,” says George Annas, a pro- in the last eight years, and will issue a clear instruction that physicians or family crises. This partnership is an extension of the fessor of health law, bioethics, and human rights in the School of Public never have to compromise medical ethics to serve their country.” And I think the doctors needed many resources BU offers to meet military needs. “The Health and one of the University’s first two William Fairfield Warren Triumph over Trauma academy and the military have a very conflicted rela- the lawyers to tell them they Distinguished Professors. “This is neither good ethics nor good practice.” tionship,” Rambo says. “I think what’s interesting about According to Annas, current medical ethics problems in the military Looking at how religious groups responded to BU is its faculty really take military issues seriously.” were immune from war crimes include physicians’ involvement in the interrogation of terrorist suspects trauma experienced by Hurricane Katrina survi- DeVoe is also launching a program to help mili- prosecution if they participated and the force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strikes. Additionally, he vors, Shelly Rambo realized that faith communities tary families with young children cope with a family questions the treatment and certification of U.S. soldiers with mental- aren’t always prepared to help set individuals who member’s return from deployment. The initiative, in them.” health conditions prior to redeployment. have experienced trauma on a path to healing. called Strong Families Strong Forces, has received four years of funding from the Department of Defense. “Military physicians often debate whether they are physicians first “I started to think about the responsibility “The impact of these wars is going to be around and military officers second, or the other way around,” he says. Annas that I had as somebody who researched and studied for a long time,” DeVoe says of the conflicts in Iraq believes that doctors in the military “are and should be bound by uni- and was deeply invested in the study of religion to and Afghanistan. “I think that it would serve us well versal medical ethics principles,” but at the moment there is no military deal with trauma,” says Rambo, an assistant profes- and it would serve our students well to get up to speed doctrine on this question. sor of theology. on how to work with the millions of people who have Further blurring legal boundaries are Justice Department lawyers, Focusing on the Christian tradition, she turned her attention to the been and will be affected by the wars.” who concluded in the aftermath of September 11 that torture was not ille- narrative of resurrection, which is central to the Christian faith and offers gal in circumstances where subjects were monitored by doctors to ensure insight into the way many believers interpret pain and healing. Most that military personnel avoided inflicting permanent injury. accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection skip directly from his crucifixion

6 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 7 Research War

on Good Friday to his rising again on Easter Sunday—a triumphant journey Preventing PTSD Violence With a $2 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control and ians is unintentional but foreseeable,” she says. “Therefore, we are obliged from death to life that Rambo suggests is inadequate for explaining the Prevention, the team is conducting weekly group sessions for couples in to reduce it.” depth of suffering experienced by trauma victims. Eight years ago, when Associate Professor of Psychiatry Casey Taft non-abusive but distressed relationships where one partner has devel- To raise awareness about what she describes as inadvertent but pre- Delving deeper into religious texts, Rambo says that it is Holy began researching the corrosive effects of post-traumatic stress disor- oped PTSD following deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq. ventable civilian deaths, Crawford has spoken at conferences for military Saturday, the day after Jesus's crucifixion and before the resurrection, der (PTSD) on soldiers’ relationships with their partners and spouses, “We focus heavily on communication skills and helping the soldiers personnel and written extensively both in academic and non-academic that fully reflects the in-between nature of trauma, where one is still he was filling a noticeable gap in the field. express their emotions, and doing things to try to establish more of a publications. She is currently working on a book titled Ordinary Atrocity haunted by past events without yet seeing the hope of a new beginning. “The problem of domestic violence in the military really didn’t sense of intimacy,” Taft says, to help prevent partner violence from and Collateral Damage, which further examines how existing military She stresses that a renewed reading of Holy Saturday—the event of Jesus’s receive a lot of attention,” he says, “until there were some high-profile occurring in the future. rules of engagement and choice of weapons undermine civilian safety. descent into hell—could offer a way for trauma survivors to place their incidents, such as Fort Bragg,” where four Army wives were killed A second study, funded by a $1.5 million grant from the Department In strategizing its approach, the onus falls on the military to design experience within the language of faith. within a six-week period in the summer of 2002. But even with increas- of Defense, seeks to develop and test an intervention focused on manag- and implement practices that will secure civilian immunity. But if the mili- “Trauma, in my view, is not only an experience of encountering ing awareness, there continues to be a lack of treatment programs tar- ing anger and ending ongoing partner violence. The project involves tary fails to curb the use of particularly dangerous weapons or take other death. Trauma is really located in the crisis of surviving that death,” geting PTSD-related partner abuse among the military population. conducting weekly group sessions with individual male veterans who actions to ensure civilian safety, it becomes the state’s duty to step in and Rambo says. “There’s suffering in living beyond a death and not yet being An anxiety condition that occurs after a person encounters the threat have engaged in physical aggression toward their partners upon return- demand change, Crawford says. able to see life.” of injury or death, PTSD alters the body’s ability to handle stress. The disor- ing from active duty. The public, too, must evaluate information about military conduct Interpreting Holy Saturday can help trauma survivors to both under- der is characterized by a constant reliving of the traumatic event, a sense of In both studies, researchers are using data collected from veterans and hold the military accountable by, for example, launching campaigns to stand the experiences of survival and map a path to recovery, says Rambo, emotional numbing, and symptoms of arousal and irritability—all of which and their partners to prepare and evaluate these programs for possible gather momentum behind a given issue, voting out supporters of ineffec- whose forthcoming book, Trauma and Redemption: Witnessing Spirit can impede nonviolent conflict resolution among couples. future use by the military. “Given the scope of the domestic violence tive policy, or calling for taxpayer-funded reparations for victims. Between Death and Life, further explores the interweaving of life and As a result, partners of service members and veterans with PTSD problem among those exposed to combat trauma who develop PTSD, “We cannot leave the business of making war to the military,” death in the Christian tradition. risk becoming victims of what Taft calls intimate partner violence, and the number of returning veterans,” says Taft, “a lot of good can be Crawford says. “We should know what our military is doing and what the In addition to her textual and theoretical work on trauma, Rambo behaviors which involve physical, psychological, and sexual aggression. done if we can develop something that works.” consequences are.” R has found ways to translate her conclusions into everyday practice. She And because longer combat exposure is more likely to result in PTSD, is currently piloting a series of workshops for religious leaders looking the extended and repeated deployments common in the armed forces Avoiding Collateral Damage Varied “collateral damage” estimates for Afghanistan, 2006–2008 today pose an added danger to military families. for ways to enable their religious communities to assist returning vet- Stories about soldiers who “snapped” and harmed civilians are what cap- “PTSD is a strong predictor of relationship problems and difficul- erans. In these workshops, Rambo turns leaders to “organic resources” ture the headlines, but political scientist Neta Crawford is investigating Nato Isaf within their traditions to assist in trauma healing. She also draws on ties in managing anger, which can lead to partner violence,” says Taft, the unintended civilian deaths caused in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other Unama who also serves as a psychologist at the Behavioral Science Division of developments in neuroscience—including findings that trauma sur- fronts in the “war on terror.” When she found that the casualties caused vivors have trouble sorting through memories and talking about their the National Center for PTSD and the Veteran Affairs Boston Healthcare Acbar* by the United States far outnumber the deaths resulting from deliberate 2006 System. Herold experiences—to encourage a move from traditional talking therapies to attacks on civilians in those war zones, she began to ask why there was so 2007 Taft, along with co–principal investigator Candice Monson, associ- an array of body-focused approaches, such as yoga, meditation, dance, much collateral damage from conflicts that the Bush administration had AI 2008 and other physical activities associated with religious practices. ate professor of psychiatry at BU’s School of Medicine, and co-investi- said would be precise and avoid harm to civilians, and to question who is Anso gator Matthew Feldner, a psychologist at the University of Arkansas, is Though her work is rooted in the Christian perspective, Rambo morally accountable for those deaths. currently working to develop and evaluate interventions to prevent and Hrw* says that all religious traditions offer trauma survivors ways to navigate Part of the problem, says Crawford, professor of political science treat partner violence. A large research team consisting of other experts 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 through suffering. and African American studies, is that the Department of Defense is in the areas of PTSD and partner violence, undergraduate and gradu- “I want religious leaders to understand that trauma really lodges in ambivalent about protecting civilians. “Many people in the Pentagon, Sources: North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s International Security Assistance Force ate research assistants, and postdoctoral fellows is also assisting in the (NATO ISAF); United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA); Agency people’s bodies,” Rambo says. “Often we are very word-oriented in reli- I think, subscribe to noncombatant immunity,” she says. “On the other gious communities and yet we have really deep practices, bodily practices” project, which takes an empirical approach to creating and evaluating Coordinating Body for Afghanistan Relief (ACBAR), Marc Herold (HEROLD); Amnesty hand, they are willing to say that if it’s militarily necessary, we’ll accept a International (AI); Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO); and Human Rights Watch intervention programs. that can help relieve the weight of trauma. certain amount of civilian deaths.” (HRW). As a result, unintended noncombatant deaths have increased in *Source indicates that their estimates are incomplete. recent years as the U.S. has employed more aggressive strategies to locate and capture terrorists or deal with “insurgents” in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unplanned air strikes, used in response to sudden enemy fire, for example, have become notorious for taking civilian lives. “Trauma is not only an experience of encounter- “People say to you privately and publicly that they are doing their best, and I think they are,” Crawford says. “But on another level, they ing death. Trauma is really located in the crisis of don’t get that the ways that they’re fighting are foreseeably causing lots of civilian injury and death.” Among the weapons used, for instance, are surviving death. There’s suffering in living beyond 2,000-pound bombs with an area of destruction roughly equivalent to a death and not yet being able to see life.” the size of two football fields, which cannot discriminate between com- batant and noncombatant when dropped in or near villages. That’s why, Crawford argues, the moral responsibility for civilian Casey Taft Neta Crawford casualties must be shared by military organizations, the state, and the To view more online, visit: public alike. “The vast majority of the harm that the U.S. has done to civil-  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009

8 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 9 Research Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s by Maggie Bucholt

Offering Hope There is no known cure for the most common neurodegenerative diseases, including many that produce dementia, and the rapidly escalating number of cases is threatening the shaky financial situation of the U.S. health care system, as baby boomers live into their eighties and nineties. More than 1.5 million Americans currently live with Parkinson’s disease, and another 5 million with Alzheimer’s, both of which primarily affect those 65 and older. Direct and indirect costs for these and other fatal neurodegenerative disorders reached a total of $148 billion in 2005, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, and are expected to rise. The cost in human terms is harder to calculate, as individuals living with dementia endure a progressive loss of cognitive abilities, such as thinking and remembering, and essential motor skills. interdisciplinary teams of Boston University researchers are in the vanguard of a new age of discovery for dimenting diseases and other disorders that lead to more subtle thinking problems— conducting pioneering research in diagnosing Alzheimer’s earlier and assessing therapies for more effective treatment; in investigating the understudied vision disorders associated with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s; and in identifying a neuropathological disease that leads to dementia in athletes and others who experience repetitive concussions.

10 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 11 Research Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

ages, adding layers like the rings of a tree to act as a time-stamp. As a With their most recent grants from the NIH, Alzheimer’s result, says Goldstein, “we can use the lens as a clock to date when the Association, and MJFF, Wolozin and his team are studying mutations beta-amyloids first appeared.” in LRRK2, the most common genetic cause of Parkinson’s disease. His team, whose research enterprise is housed in both the BioSquare They have found that LRRK2 mutations produce similar nerve cell loss Research Park on BU’s Medical Campus and the Photonics Center on its in nematodes, or roundworms, and are set to publish preliminary find- Charles River Campus, developed the noninvasive laser procedure and ings showing that resveratrol—an antioxidant found in red wine and adapted a topical treatment that can identify the cataract in the lens dark chocolate—protects nematodes with the mutation against nerve periphery. cell degeneration. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved both the laser In collaboration with biomedical engineer James Collins, they are ophthalmic application and the topical drug for human clinical tri- using these nematodes to screen for the genetic pathways that cause als, which are being funded by the NIH’s National Institute on Aging Parkinson’s. Wolozin is also collaborating with another BU faculty and by Neuroptix, a private company co-founded by Goldstein. In the member, Jiang-Fan Chen of the Parkinson’s Disease & Movement next research phase, supported by the NIH and the National Science Disorders Center, on the next stage—an investigation of resveratrol’s Foundation, he plans to draw on the expertise of the Photonics Center effect on the Parkinson’s model in mice. to develop a next-generation laser instrument more powerful than the Both Collins and Chen—along with Goldstein, for his work on current prototype. amyloid-beta pathology outside the brain—were among the roughly two “I’m blessed to be here,” says Goldstein. “The Photonics Center is dozen researchers this year from across the University attending BU’s the leading center for photonics research. BU is uniquely positioned to third annual Parkinson’s Forum, organized by Wolozin. “What I love be at the forefront of research in this field.” about BU is that there are so many people doing outstanding research,” he says. “The goal of the forum is to bring together people from dif- Connect, Collaborate, Conquer ferent disciplines who are working on Parkinson’s disease directly or indirectly.” In the race to discover drugs that delay or prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s Lee E. Goldstein’s lab has developed a noninvasive laser procedure that may help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease years before cognitive symptoms occur. And, of course, to find a cure. The forum’s motto says it all: Connect, or Parkinson’s symptoms, Professor of Pharmacology & Neurology collaborate, conquer. Benjamin Wolozin is one of the front-runners. His two-pronged approach—basic science that investigates the “By the time the first symptoms appear, it’s not the Neuronal processes in cells expressing normal and mutant LRRK2 pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases, combined with drug epi- beginning, but the beginning of the end. The window demiology studies—has earned him funding from the National Institutes WT-LRRK2 G2019S-LRRK2 for maximum therapeutic impact is way past.” of Health (NIH), Retirement Research Foundation, Alzheimer’s Association, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF), among others. “Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s are differ- The Eyes Have It Amyloid-beta (A) pathology in Alzheimer's patients ent neurodegenerative diseases,” says Wolozin, Lee E. Goldstein is shining a new light on earlier detection of Alzheimer’s who has been awarded four patents for his disease. If the current clinical trials on his laser technology to identify work on Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. “But A B CONTROL distinctive Alzheimer’s cataracts are successful, the noninvasive test will they share a similarity.” move one step closer to becoming a universal screening device, similar to Brain A  Both diseases have “bad” proteins that inter- mammography or the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test for cancer, years fere with brain function. In Alzheimer’s, a pro- before patients have Alzheimer’s symptoms. Benjamin Wolozin tein termed beta-amyloid builds up in the brain, “Alzheimer’s disease takes 10 to 20 years to develop,” says Goldstein, filling it with small deposits, commonly called an associate professor of psychiatry, neurology, ophthalmology, pathol- neuritic plaques. In Parkinson’s, alpha-synuclein—a protein associated ogy, and laboratory medicine. “By the time the first symptoms appear, it’s Lens A with the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells—depletes the brain of a not the beginning, but the beginning of the end. The window for maximum  critical neurotransmitter responsible for communicating with muscles. 1 - RAC therapeutic impact is way past.” Wolozin researches whether medications approved by the FDA for C D W T Working with transgenic Alzheimer’s mice, Goldstein and his col- other ailments can be shown to combat Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Rac1, a small protein that stimulates neuronal processes, protects leagues discovered the first evidence of amyloid-beta pathology outside symptoms as well. His most recent study utilized data on more than 5 against damage caused by mutations in the LRRK2 gene, which the brain in the form of dense bilateral cataracts. These unusual cataracts Amyloid-beta proteins form a sticky plaque substance million patients from the Veteran Administration’s digital database in are the most common genetic cause of Parkinson’s disease. Here, are easily distinguishable from age-related cataracts because they contain in the brain and nerve cells of an individual with order to investigate angiotensin-receptor blockers, or ARBs. In a star- neuronal processes are highlighted in red for human neurons amyloid protein, a sticky plaque substance found in the brains and nerve Alzheimer’s, top. These proteins can also be found out- tling discovery, Wolozin found that patients taking ARBs—which are engineered to make normal LRRK2 (panel A) or LRRK2 carry- side of the brain in the form of dense bilateral cataracts, cells of Alzheimer’s patients. FDA-approved for high blood pressure—showed a 35 to 40 percent lower ing the G2109S mutation (panel B). Producing rac1 along with above. LRRK2 in the neurons prevents the degeneration caused by According to Goldstein, the eye’s lens provides an exquisite map of chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. G2019S LRRK2 (panel D). the biological evolution of the human body. The lens grows as the body

12 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 13 Research Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s

The Memory Game “The study results are telling us that something is happening a lot through a doorway. Other findings relate to motion perception, night Figure 1: Tau immunostained sections of medial temporal lobe from three individuals If you are in your fifties and have the gene associated with Alzheimer’s earlier, and we need to look further,” she says. “But I would not suggest vision, and visual hallucinations. disease—along with a parent who developed the degenerative brain dis- that people take a memory test, even if they have the gene.” “Patients may hallucinate, seeing little animals out of the corner order—chances are you’re more forgetful than your peers. Approximately 50 percent of people with the E4 gene will develop of their eye, for example, and it’s not due to the drugs or a psychotic Sudha Seshadri, an associate professor of neurology, recently dis- the devastating disease, although Seshadri believes that other genes, episode,” she says. “At one Parkinson’s support group, after I had covered that the children of parents with Alzheimer’s disease have more which have yet to be identified, also play a role. The E4 genetic test is described these sorts of hallucations, a man stood up and said, ‘I have memory problems, compared to other same-aged subjects who have conducted after people show Alzheimer’s symptoms, usually in their that.’ And his friend next to him turned and said, ‘You do? So do I.’ the gene, known as APOE4 (or E4 for short), but whose parents did not mid-seventies. The earlier the diagnosis, before permanent brain dam- If we want to improve their quality of life, we have to discuss these develop the disease. Though still within the normal range, the responses age occurs, the more successful the outcome in relieving symptoms with symptoms.” of subjects with a parent who has Alzheimer’s are more in line with medication. In 2004, Cronin-Golomb’s so-called red-plate study uncovered 70-year-olds than 55-year-olds, says Seshadri. visual dysfunction in those with Alzheimer’s, one possible cause of The findings of the parental-link study—the first to demonstrate Seeing Red undernourishment and serious weight loss in many patients. Brightly colored plates that differ from the color of the food were found to memory changes long before Alzheimer’s symptoms are usually diag- Visual and cognitive impairment in Parkinson’s may take a backseat to help people with Alzheimer’s distinguish the food from the plates nosed—were presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 2009 the loss of motor skills for many in the neurology community, but not for and cups and to increase their food consumption by approximately annual meeting. With funding from the National Institute on Aging, neuropsychologist Alice Cronin-Golomb. 25 percent. Seshadri next plans to develop risk-prediction scores based on her initial “If you ask Parkinson’s patients what bothers them the most, it Today, with a second NIH grant based on the red-plate study, she findings. won’t always be their deteriorating motor skills,” says Cronin-Golomb, is designing tests to maximize Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients’ Using the standard Wechsler Memory Scale, 715 research subjects director of the Vision & Cognition Laboratory, and a presenter at the Figure 2: Tau immunostained sections of visual abilities and a computer software program that will customize whose parents’s lifelong dimentia status was known and who possess the Parkinson’s Forum. “Medicine doesn’t take care of all these other frontal cortex from three individuals tests to level the playing field in assessing patients’ abilities. The tests E4 gene were tested on logical memory and visual spatial memory. They symptoms.” will include words, faces, and geometric figures, and with one key- were asked to read aloud a paragraph and then, after a 20-minute inter- With grants from the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological stroke the software will increase the contrast of the objects by exactly val, to recall the story and the details. They were also shown pictures of Disorders and Stroke, Cronin-Golomb and her team are focusing on the amount needed to compensate for that particular person’s contrast geometric shapes and asked to describe the patterns. Half of the partici- object identification in Alzheimer’s disease and the thought processes sensitivity deficit. The result is that every person taking the test will be pants—all of whom were second-generation offspring of Framingham involving visual and spatial awareness in Parkinson’s disease. at the same perceptual starting line. Heart Study patients—had one or more parents with Alzheimer’s. Visual disorders can predict other aspects of Parkinson’s-related “Most people think they’re seeing things at maximum con- Seshadri found that among individuals with an E4 gene, those dysfunction, says Cronin-Golomb, and those symptoms can be addressed trast, but they’re not,” says Cronin-Golomb. “Newspapers are only whose parents had developed dementia performed significantly worse through physical or occupational therapy. Poor contrast sensitivity, for at 70 percent contrast. Healthy older adults also have an age-related on memory tests, although they were only in their early sixties and instance, is related to a patient’s “freezing”—an inability to move—and decrease in discerning visual contrast. For people with Alzheimer’s Alzheimer’s typically develops in septuagenarians. her research suggests it may be caused by a visual trigger such as walking and Parkinson’s, there is even more loss.” Concussion Caution Between 1.6 million and 3.8 million sports-related concussions occur “If you ask Parkinson’s patients what bothers them Figures 1 and 2 show varying levels of tau protein deposits in whole brain and annually in the United States, increasing athletes’ risk of chronic trau- microscopic sections taken from three individuals (l–r): a 65-year-old control most, it won’t always be their deteriorating motor matic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease that even- subject; former NFL linebacker John Grimsley; and a 73-year-old former tually leads to dementia. Boston University researchers stunned the world-champion boxer. The control subject displays no tau deposition, while skills…If we want to improve their quality of life, the sections taken from Grimsley and the boxer show dense tau-positive sports world this year with the discovery that CTE—a condition, often neurofibrillary tangles, which can also be found in the brains of patients with we have to discuss these other symptoms.” associated with boxers, which gave rise to the term “punch-drunk”— Alzheimer’s disease. can also be found in football players and other athletes. That’s the bad news. The good news is that CTE is the only cause of dementia that is preventable through increased awareness and education about concussions. Research at BU’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy (CSTE), funded by the University and by grants from the NIH and the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, is in its infancy. Robert Stern, one of four co- directors, says that CTE is a tau-based disease, only diagnosed after death by examining brain tissue under a microscope. Abnormal accu- mulations of the tau protein cause neurofibrillary tangles in the brain that are also found in Alzheimer’s disease. “We want to understand who is likely to develop CTE and to be Sudha Seshadri Alice Cronin-Golomb Robert Stern Ann McKee able to diagnose it during a person’s lifetime,” says Stern, an associ-

14 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 15 Research Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Research Snapshot BY Chris Berdik

SparkNotes for Surveillance ate professor of neurology and co-director of the Alzheimer’s Disease “Education is our first goal,” she says. “That and convincing people Like it or not, we’re being watched. Surveillance Footage of the Massachusetts Turnpike Clinical & Research Program. that this disorder does exist. Players, coaches, and parents need to pay a video networks are increasingly hovering over on their website, taken by a video camera on The center collaborates with the Sports Legacy Institute, founded lot of attention to concussions and give players time to recover, some- workplaces, street corners, businesses, hospi- the roof of a campus building, illustrates the by Christopher Nowinski, a former football player and professional times as long as five to six weeks.” tals, and public spaces. According to a 2008 concept. Around midday, four lanes of very wrestler, and Robert Cantu, a neurosurgeon at Emerson Hospital as estimate in Popular Mechanics, there are now light traffic speed down the highway during a more than 30 million surveillance cameras in the 12-minute interval. Every few seconds, a car, van, well as a clinical professor of neurosurgery at BU’s School of Medicine, Moving Research United States, recording about four billion hours truck, or bus cruises by in one lane or another; both of whom are also CSTE co-directors. The fourth co-director is by Andrew Thurston of video every week. Many of these electronic occasionally a few vehicles move through the Ann McKee, an associate professor of neurology and pathology in the eyes were installed after the 2001 terror attacks frame simultaneously. Crucially, however, each BU School of Medicine, and director of neuropathology for the CSTE, They were on their own again. The patients—all suffering from and are meant to make us safer. But, as electri- individual lane has many empty periods, and BU Alzheimer’s Disease Center, Framingham Heart Study, and New Parkinson’s disease—had volunteered for two studies that mixed speech, cal and computer engineers Prakash Ishwar and there are also brief sequences when the short England Veterans Affairs Medical Centers. physical, and occupational therapy to help them achieve a better quality Janusz Konrad point out, the collected data still stretch of highway in view is vacant. The algo- McKee and the research team published their findings on CTE of life than medications alone could deliver. They learned exercises to needs human monitoring to be useful. Who can rithm carves out those empty slices. In the in the Journal of Neuropathology and Experimental Neurology in July regain simple pleasures that the disease had taken from them, tips and watch that much footage, especially when most resulting condensed video, which can be viewed 2009. Their article cited 51 neuropathologically confirmed cases, 46 techniques for getting out of chairs with ease or chatting and socializing of it is mind-numbingly uneventful? in under two minutes, the silver sedan still drives of which involved athletes: 39 boxers, five football players, one pro- with confidence. But once the study was over, the patients returned to “It’s a problem of information overload,” by first in the far left lane, followed by the black Prakash Ishwar and Janusz Konrad fessional wrestler, and one soccer player. A third of the athletes pro- their former reliance on medications. says Ishwar. He and Konrad are working on a jeep and the red SUV in the middle lane, and way to mine that data using computer algorithms then the 18-wheeler on the far right. But now, the filed experienced symptoms of CTE, including memory loss, cognitive It felt like a step backward to Terry Ellis, the studies’ author and asso- to condense massive videos into much shorter significant gaps in time separating their appear- model that can accommodate cameras with the decline, gait abnormalities, and Parkinson’s, at the time of their retire- ciate director of clinical care in the BU Center for Neurorehabilitation. “digests” that can be more easily reviewed. ances are gone: each vehicle follows closely on ability to pan and zoom. ment from the sport. Half developed symptoms within four years of She wanted to see her patients keep their forward momentum, so, Their technology could revolutionize security the heels of the last. Inactivity on the highway is in the meantime, plans to commercialize stopping play. she says, “based on our results, we developed Community Wellness networks and other long-term video surveillance kept to a minimum. the technology are in the works, led by former Researchers ultimately found CTE in the brains of six deceased Programs for people with Parkinson’s disease.” applications, such as environmental and animal a condensed video still requires a human graduate student Stephen Chao who earned a National Football League (NFL) players; the most recent was Tom Now in their fifth year, the programs include twice-weekly group habitat monitoring. to search through it for anomalies or incidents master’s in computer engineering at BU, and McHale, a retired lineman for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who died at sessions providing patients those “elements of exercise and rehabilita- instead of cutting entire frames or simply of interest, says Konrad, but it makes that job current doctoral candidate Ajay Bangla. Listing the age of 45. More than a dozen high-profile NFL players have agreed tion” that the study found to be most important and effective. Thanks to fast forwarding, Ishwar and Konrad’s “ribbon much more efficient. One person could review Konrad as chief technology officer and Ishwar as to donate their brains to the CSTE brain bank. In May, McKee spoke to funding from the American Parkinson’s Disease Association, 13 sites in carving” algorithm identifies and removes fine footage from dozens of cameras, he says, “and vice president of engineering, the two students the NFL Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Committee about their findings. New England now offer wellness programs following Ellis’s model. She slices of “background” pixels—basically, what- not get dizzy.” Likewise, adds Ishwar, reviewers developed a business plan that took first prize estimates that altogether they have reached more than 300 patients. ever is not moving or changing from frame to would need to go back to the original foot- in a competition sponsored by BU’s Student frame—from individual frames of the video age to judge the true timing of things, such as Association of Graduate Engineers. Chao and “My problem was when I went to bed, wherever I lay, I stayed,” as it moves through time. Ribbon carving sig- the exact interval between the sedan and the Bangla will soon start investigating patents, rais- says Jack, a 75-year-old participant in the BU wellness program. “The nificantly shortens the amount of time required 18-wheeler. In such cases, he says, the con- ing venture capital, creating a marketing plan, Community Wellness therapy helped me incredibly—even to get out of bed. When I get in bed, to watch a video, while also minimizing alter- densed video could provide time-saving search and, hopefully, seeing their efforts turn a tech- Programs developed I don’t have movement of the upper part of my body, so they taught us by physical therapist ations in spatial and temporal relationships cues, much like “a table of contents or an index nology into a business. Terry Ellis, right, are tricks to move around.” between objects moving in that video—cars, for in a book.” “There are so many challenges remaining helping patients with The benefits of outreach also extend to researchers and students in instance, or people, or an endangered species. ishwar and Konrad are now refining their that I don’t even know where to start,” says Parkinson’s disease the College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences: Sargent College. While Currently, the technology developed by Ishwar technology by making the code more profes- Chao. “But luckily, in our case, the first big regain confidence and Ellis’s earlier studies uncovered the broad benefits of certain exercises, and Konrad can reduce videos in time by a fac- sional, optimizing the algorithm to condense challenge was taken care of—coming up with a mobility. much remains to be discovered and refined. tor of between five and 20. videos by a factor of 100 to one, and creating a great idea.” R “We’re continuing to look at things like: What are the most important parts of exercise? How much should people be doing? What kind of dose of exercise makes a difference?” she says. “I’m just about to start a Video condensation can longitudinal study following people over time, so we can have a better reduce viewing time understanding of the impact we’re making with exercise. Large multi- by a factor of 20. In a center clinical trials are currently being proposed to investigate whether test sequence of traffic exercise is neuro-protective and may have a role in slowing down the footage, vehicles seen in a | Original frame #12,852 b | Original frame #12,933 progression of the disease.” three different frames of the original video (A–C) That kind of finding could revolutionize the current approach to appear together in the Parkinson’s, a degenerative disease that many are now living with for condensed video (D). 20 or 30 years and for which medications are only effective for a limited time. “I’d like to see exercise be part of the standard care,” says Ellis. “We c | Original frame #12,947 d | Condensed frame #1,808 do that here, but elsewhere it’s rare.” R

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16 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 17 Research Infectious Diseases by Mark Dwortzan

Decoding Infectious Diseases This year’s outbreak of the H1N1 virus—formerly known as the swine flu—illustrates how quickly an infectious disease can spread around the world. Since the advent of international jet travel, bacteria and viruses once confined to remote regions have frequently hitched rides with passengers, crossing multiple time zones in a matter of hours. As globalization continues apace, the public health community is redoubling its efforts to contain the spread of infections. Researchers at Boston University are bringing together their expertise in science, engineering, medicine, and health care management, as well as the specialized skills of investigators scheduled to work at BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) when the facility is fully functional, to speed up vaccine and drug discovery and to advance innovative health care delivery solutions for some of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

18 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 19 Research Infectious Diseases

The National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories will enable basic, translational, and clinical research on naturally occurring diseases as well as pathogens likely to be used in bioterrorism. Mühlberger has targeted one such protein, VP35, that’s instrumental in enabling filoviruses to replicate. By bombarding VP35 with small compounds called P-PMOs, she has prevented filoviruses from replicating in cells. In a collaborative study, P-PMOs were injected in Ebola-infected mice and 100 percent of the mice survived while those untreated died. VP35 also targets several signaling proteins in the host, ultimately block- ing many pathways in its innate immune response—pathways that may enable the host to produce proteins to combat Ebola and Marburg. Mühlberger next plans to explore how her findings on filovirus replication and immune response disruption in cells may apply to humans.

Hooking the Worm Is a Human Ebola Vaccine at Hand?

Along the shores of Lake Victoria in western Kenya, there lurks a hidden In March, a virologist at the Bernard Nocht danger that threatens anyone who bathes or goes fishing in the lake or uses Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, its water to clean vehicles in one of many nearby carwashes. Snails in the lake Germany, stuck her finger with a needle that host a parasitic worm that causes schistosomiasis, a debilitating disease that contained Ebola, raising deep concern in brings on fatigue, anemia, stunted growth, and, occasionally, death. the global Ebola scientific community. Most Schistosomiasis has claimed about 207 million victims, primarily in Asia lab accidents with filoviruses occur through and Africa, and threatens 800 million more who dwell near bodies of water needle sticks, and they are almost always in the tropics. While largely effective, the current treatment is inadequate 100 percent lethal. In the original 1976 Ebola outbreak in a Zaire hospital, for instance, all because it works primarily against the adult worm, leaving young worms and 85 patients who received needle sticks con- eggs intact to cause additional symptoms or reinfect the host. To help prevent taining the virus died. this illness, Lisa Ganley-Leal, an assistant professor of infectious diseases, is “Joan and I were sitting on the tarmac seeking to advance the world’s first effective vaccine for a parasitic disease. at Washington Dulles Airport when I got a With Pauline Mwinzi, director of the schistosomiasis lab at the Kenya phone call about this event two hours after it “The host recognized the surface Ebola protein, and built up an immune response. Medical Research Institute, Ganley-Leal is studying how the human immune happened,” recalls Tom Geisbert, associate system responds to schistosome infection. In particular, they’re focused on director of the National Emerging Infectious So when the monkey’s immune system encountered live Ebola virus, it fought it off.” why some victims are reinfected upon subsequent exposure to the worm, Diseases Laboratories. Colleague Heinz while others are not. Learning more about the immune response of indi- Feldmann, a scientist at Rocky Mountain viduals in both categories could enable scientists to pinpoint how to boost the Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, who human immune system’s defenses against the disease. co-developed an Ebola vaccine for monkeys with Tom and Joan Geisbert [see Ganley-Leal’s investigation centers on antigen-specific IgE, a type of Combating the Deadliest Viruses “Combating the Deadliest Viruses”], also antibody in the immune system that, at sufficiently high levels in the blood, Possibly transmitted by cave-dwelling African bats and highly sought after vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV), a live virus that commonly strikes horses received a call from the Hamburg lab. correlates with protection against schistosome reinfection. “Scientists have for use in bioterrorism, Ebola and Marburg are two viruses that pack a and cattle but is safe for monkeys. When the scientists injected the Ebola “We all had a long discussion about known about IgE’s protective effect for 60 years, but nobody’s understood wallop. Inducing severe fevers and internal and external bleeding, these protein–coated VSV particle into a macaque monkey, it traveled to the exact what should be done for this woman,” says the mechanism behind it,” says Ganley-Leal. “We’re trying to determine the Geisbert. “In the end, the patient and her so-called filoviruses kill approximately 90 percent of their victims. While same immune system cells that Ebola would infect, and then replicated. mechanism and also what the parasite does to IgE and its receptors to block doctor decided that she would be injected fewer than 4,000 cases have been documented since the first outbreaks of “The host recognized not only VSV but primarily the surface Ebola the immune response.” with the VSV Ebola vaccine we developed Marburg in 1967 and Ebola in 1976, scientists have observed a rising num- protein, and built up an immune response against that protein,” Tom as a treatment, and it was shipped overnight ber of new cases over the years. No prevention or cure has yet emerged, Geisbert explains. “It’s a memory response, so when the monkey’s to Hamburg. They gave her the vaccine and but three leading filovirus researchers at BU’s NEIDL facility are fast immune system actually encountered live Ebola virus, it fought it off.” she did not develop the disease.” gaining ground. The vaccine also helped monkeys fight off Ebola when it was administered He acknowledges that no one knows Tom Geisbert, associate director of the NEIDL and director of its after exposure to the virus. for sure whether the lab technician was Specimen Processing Core Laboratory (SPCL), and Joan Geisbert, associ- As the Geisberts continue their efforts to develop human versions infected with Ebola when she received the ate director of both the SPCL and the NEIDL Training Simulator, have of these vaccines, Elke Mühlberger, associate professor of microbiology, vaccine. “We still need to analyze samples spent several years studying and reengineering the immune response of investigator at the NEIDL, and associate director of its Biomolecular to see if she was exposed to Ebola or not,” nonhuman primates to infection by filoviruses. Their work has produced Production Core Laboratory, is seeking to identify promising targets Geisbert says, “but we like to think the vaccine worked out.” two vaccines—one for Marburg, another for Ebola—that protect monkeys for antiviral drugs. To begin with, she aims to decipher how Ebola and against infection from these viruses. Marburg viruses replicate and disrupt the immune response. To develop the vaccine against Ebola, the Geisberts and colleagues at “These viruses spread very rapidly, so there’s no chance for the the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Rocky Mountain host’s immune system to counteract them,” she notes. “Filoviruses also Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, extracted a protein from the surface have their own proteins that are needed for replication. If you target one of the Ebola virus and inserted the gene for that protein into a particle of of these proteins and switch it off, the virus can’t replicate anymore.” Tom Geisbert Elke Mühlberger Lisa Ganley-Leal

20 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 21 Research Infectious Diseases

Funded by a National Institutes of to arrive at a better understanding of how TB functions—and to identify the city’s Latino community, primarily due to an alarming rise in Health grant and supported by multiple prime targets for more effective drugs. heroin and other intravenous drug use. residents, students, and fellows within Driving this research is the fast-growing discipline of computational Traditionally underserved by culturally sensitive HIV preven- the School of Medicine, Ganley-Leal ulti- systems biology. Unlike traditional microbiology, which often relies on tion and substance abuse treatment providers, Latino-Americans mately hopes to identify whatever para- knocking out one gene or protein at a time and studying the effect on the often do not seek out or complete detoxification and treatment site protein is responsible for subverting behavior of an organism, systems biology empowers scientists to measure services. Not only does this predicament perpetuate a state of pov- the immune response and engineer it for all of the organism’s gene and protein interactions at once. The process erty for many in the nation’s Latino community, it also drives up Freshwater snails serve as intermedi- use in a vaccine. ate hosts of the parasite that causes affords a holistic view that accelerates drug discovery. emergency room costs and threatens to widen the spread of HIV. Culturing human cells with par- schistosomiasis, the world’s second “We have the unique opportunity to put together a systems-level Since 2002, Lena Lundgren, professor of social welfare pol- asites extracted from infected snails, most socioeconomically devastating view of the metabolic and regulatory networks of TB and other infec- icy and director of the Boston University Center for Addictions disease after malaria. she is now investigating how the worm tious diseases,” says Galagan, whose work is supported by two grants Research & Services (CARS)—together with colleagues Maryann changes the IgE receptors on the cells. from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and students in engineer- Amodeo, Melvin Delgado, Sally Bachman, Luz Lopez, center staff, So far she’s found that the parasites employ multiple strategies to target ing, math, computer science, and molecular and microbiology. “Our goal and students—has sought to reverse this trend through hands-on a particular IgE receptor associated with resistance to the disease— is to come up with the functional blueprint of these diseases—how the partnerships with two community-based Latino organizations: La including lopping off the IgE receptor from the cell like a paper cutter. parts work together and the rules by which they operate.” Voz, a program of Tapestry Health Services that offers substance “We’re trying to find the protein the parasite is using to cleave that To build a functional blueprint of TB, Galagan is applying new tech- abuse, HIV prevention, and mental health services in neighbor- IgE receptor protein from the cell, and we think we’ve identified it,” says niques from systems biology to what’s known about the TB genome— hood drop-in centers and other non-clinical settings; and Casa Ganley-Leal, who is collaborating with a Tufts University Veterinary Esperanza, a statewide residential program in Roxbury for Latino primarily the sequence and identity of its approximately 4,000 genes. Lighting the Way School scientist, Patrick Skelly, to silence parasite genes suspected of Using a technique called genome profiling, he’ll attempt to determine adults seeking to end their drug addiction. cutting off the IgE receptor. “After validating the responsible protein, when each component of the genome is active. For example, when TB is Supported by nine federal grants totaling more than $14 Osamu Shimomura estimates that he has collected more than 850,000 we’ll clone it and see if people who are resistant have antibodies to that infecting a macrophage (an immune system cell that operates as a first million for health services, evaluation, and research since 2002, jellyfish over the years, fueled by curiosity about what it is that gives protein. That would be one way to identify a vaccine candidate.” line of defense against infectious agents), genome profiling pinpoints the center has provided research, training, and consultation to Aequorea victoria its luminescent glow, and why. In 1961, Shimomura isolated the protein he was looking for, which which proteins and metabolites (small molecules that produce energy both organizations. “More than 30 mental health counselors and he named aequorin, and also purified a few milligrams of a second sub- Blueprint for Better Drugs for TB) are turned on or off. substance abuse workers, and 20 social work and public health stance called green fluorescent protein, or GFP. Little did he know that masters and doctoral students have been trained, resulting in One of humanity’s top four killers, tuberculosis (TB) causes up to three “If we see certain genes on or off together, then they may be part of more than thirty years later, GFP would spark a scientific revolution on more than 1,800 members of the Latino community receiving HIV million deaths each year, primarily in developing countries. Combating the same sub-circuit,” Galagan explains. “And this gives us a systematic a par with the one that followed Anton Van Leeuwenhook’s invention of the disease with today’s commercially available treatments entails way to identify where to disrupt the circuitry of TB.” By knocking out prevention and substance abuse services,” says Lundgren. “We go the microscope in the mid-16th century. administering three to four drugs for up to nine months—a difficult feat selected sub-circuits of the metabolic and regulatory networks of TB beyond research and use our backgrounds as program planners It would also earn Shimomura, now a School of Medicine professor to achieve in places that lack a robust public health infrastructure. To in simulation and determining the effect on TB behavior, Galagan aims and developers and clinicians to provide these organizations with emeritus of physiology, a share in the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. sharply reduce TB’s death toll in the foreseeable future with simpler, to identify new drug targets and evaluate the impact of potential drug the knowledge they need when they need it.” The other winners were Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and faster treatments, scientists will need to come up with a new blueprint compounds. As described in the journal Evaluation and Program Planning Roger Tsien of the University of California at San Diego, both of whom for drug development. (volume 31.1), Lundren’s efforts—with other Social Work faculty pioneered cellular research techniques that utilize GFP. So argues James Galagan, assistant professor of biomedical engi- Reducing HIV Risk and graduate students—have enabled Casa Esperanza and La Voz Because GFP glows without any additives, appearing green under blue or UV light, it allows researchers to track the effects of individual neering and microbiology, and associate director of the Systems Biology In Springfield’s Latino community, heroin is cheaper than a pack of to reduce HIV risk and substance abuse rates. Separate CARS out- proteins within a cell. So far, GFP has been used to map neural path- of Infectious Disease Core in Boston University’s NEIDL. In preliminary cigarettes. Unfortunately, HIV is often included in the price. So reads the come evaluations have shown, for instance, a 56 percent increase ways, illuminate growing tumors, and track the spread of pathogenic in abstinence from alcohol and illegal drugs in Casa Esperanza studies he plans to validate at the high-containment facility, Galagan is opening line of the brochure for La Voz, an HIV prevention and sub- bacteria—and even to create a transgenic GFP rabbit that glows green in clients interviewed between intake and a six-month follow-up, and now probing the interactions of the gene and protein networks within stance abuse reduction program based in Springfield, Massachusetts. In the dark. the tuberculosis bacterium. By mapping out these interactions, he hopes the last decade, the disease has affected a disproportionate number of a 40 percent reduction of injection drug use among La Voz clients Shimomura, who is also a senior scientist emeritus at the Marine surveyed for a similar period. Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, believes that there Key to these success stories is Lundgren and her colleagues’ are still many undiscovered molecules in nature which emit light. “If you translation of research findings into helping organizations select find an interesting subject,” he says, “go study it. Don’t stop. There is a customized suite of services, such as teaching relapse preven- difficulty in any research—don’t give up hope until you overcome that.” tion techniques in order to reduce alcohol and drug abuse, and “We go beyond research and use our the provision of mobile vans that offer HIV outreach, testing, and counseling services in at-risk neighborhoods. Osamu Shimomura, above (on the left), received the 2008 backgrounds as program planners and “Through consultation and training with leaders and front- Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his developers and clinicians to provide line staff, we have helped them provide evidence-based services discovery of green fluorescent that we know are linked to reduced HIV risk and substance abuse protein in Aequorea jelly- these organizations with the knowledge rates, and we have seen these rates reduced through their ser- fish, left. The Royal Swedish vices,” Lundgren maintains. “Community-based treatment and Academy of Sciences called GFP “one of the most important they need when they need it.” prevention organizations often don’t have access to the resources tools used in contemporary we have as a university, and that’s why it’s so important that we bioscience.” work with them.”

22 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 23 Research Infectious Diseases Research Snapshot BY Jason Warshof

Cells to the Rescue

Probing Periodontal Disease Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. despite serious long-term health risks, including While limitations on federal funding for embry- blindness and renal and cardiovascular disease. Caused by oral bacteria and the body’s immune response to them, onic stem cell research—which were partially Previous efforts to cure the disease by creating the world’s second most common disease, periodontitis, inflames the lifted last March—touched off a series of heated artificial beta cells have been unsuccessful. tissues that buttress the teeth and can lead to tooth loss. Of the 700 ethical debates nationally, they also sparked “What do you think happens?” asks bacterial species present in dental plaques, only 10 to 15 have been char- new developments in labs like Michael Wolfe’s. Wolfe. “The body says, ‘I don’t like these acterized, a knowledge gap that has undoubtedly affected the accuracy “Researchers know a great deal about cells,’ and destroys them.” Instead, he and his of diagnosis and treatment for this disease. Better knowledge of the embryonic stem cells,” says Wolfe, professor of team—including biochemist Michael Boylan plaque agents and their impact on the host would translate into a more medicine and chief of gastroenterology at the BU and postdoctoral gastroenterology fellow Elisa focused approach likely to improve treatment outcomes. School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center. Valente—are focusing on K-cells, endocrine One such agent that’s particularly virulent in the most destruc- “But there are other potential sources for obtain- cells in the upper small intestinal lining (adja- tive forms of periodontal disease is a bacterium called Porphyromonas ing stem cells—all of which can express every cent to the pancreas) that share similarities Salomon Amar Daniel Segrè gingivalis. Recognizing the importance of P. gingivalis, Salomon Amar, gene in a human’s makeup—to investigate and with beta cells, including the ability to rec- explore. In recent years, we have seen phenom- ognize glucose levels in the intestine and to professor of dental medicine, and Daniel Segrè, assistant professor of enal progress in these new areas.” manufacture needed hormones. In other words, bioinformatics, have embarked on a collaborative study to improve our induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells says Wolfe, “you have a cell that behaves very Michael Wolfe understanding of this bacterium and its role in periodontal disease. for short, are adult cells that have been taken much like a beta cell, only it’s not a beta cell,” “Our idea is to examine the metabolic pathway associated with this from a patient’s skin and then reprogrammed making K-cells an exciting alternative for Type periodontal pathogen and begin to understand what possible interfer- into undifferentiated cells able to develop into 1 diabetes research. ence we could engineer to destroy or reduce the virulence factors of this any one of the more than 200 types of cells in Building on results published in Science Mostoslavsky, an assistant professor of medi- microorganism or prevent its growth without destroying it completely,” the human body. Because iPS cells are derived in 2000, in which Wolfe and his collaborators cine and an expert in using lentiviruses to says Amar. “If the virulence factors of this microorganism can be from the patient’s own tissue, they are not showed that K-cells can be used to express modify cells. “The virus we are using in this reduced, we can begin to have a more sustainable therapeutic approach susceptible to rejection by the immune system insulin in genetically altered mice whose beta case has actually been derived from HIV,” says and prevent disease recurrence.” when reintroduced, thereby potentially elimi- cells have been destroyed, he is now working Mostoslavsky. “This sounds scary, but of course In pursuit of such an approach, Amar, an expert in periodontal nating the need for immunosuppressants. With to develop a gene therapy treatment that will the virus has been emptied of its pathogenic eliminate Type 1 diabetes in mice by delivering disease, and Segrè, a seasoned modeler of microbial metabolism, have support from the Hartwell Foundation, Wolfe is qualities while retaining great efficiency at intro- exploring how iPS cells might be used to cure iPS cells to the intestinal lining. These iPS cells ducing genes into both dividing and nondividing developed a genome-scale model of the metabolic network of P. gingi- Type 1 diabetes mellitus. are programmed to develop into K-cells capa- cells.” Many other viruses can introduce genes valis. Using the model, they hope to predict where they can intervene affecting approximately one in 300 chil- ble of producing insulin peptides in response only into cells that divide. in this network and thus pinpoint what genes they can mutate—and The metabolic network of Porphyromonas gingivalis, one of the microbes responsible for dren in the United States, Type 1 diabetes is to food ingestion, as well as another peptide the peptide replacement technique under ultimately target with drug compounds—to reduce the microorgan- periodontal disease, is projected onto a mannequin head. A computational model of this caused by the immune system attacking pan- that is naturally synthesized by K-cells, called network developed by Salomon Amar and Daniel Segrè can be used to produce testable development by Wolfe and his colleagues could ism’s virulence and prevent its proliferation. Eventually they’ll test the predictions of the bacterium’s metabolic fluxes under different environmental conditions creatic beta-islet cells, which are responsible for glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, have far-reaching applications for viral hepa- mutated microorganisms in animal models to see if they produce less and genetic perturbations. releasing insulin and without which the body is or GIP. Treatment in humans, a possibility titis, chronic diarrhea, obesity, dwarfism, and periodontal disease. unable to utilize sugars and other nutrients to that lies several years down the road, would other conditions caused by various hereditary The collaboration between Amar and Segrè represents the first store and conserve energy. Current treatment involve a pain-free, one-time endoscopy and and acquired deficiency states. major research project that brings together oral microbiology and options are less than ideal. Insulin replacement would include a kind of genetic circuit breaker “We could actually treat anything that has systems biology to predict which genes to target in a pathogenic micro- therapy requires patients to check their blood designed to stop the therapy if toxicity devel- a gene with these little peptide factories,” says ops or if it is no longer required. organism. By uniting these disciplines, the scientists hope to accelerate sugar levels at regular intervals and to adminis- Wolfe. “And we could do it with one treatment ter painful injections, often multiple times every to facilitate insulin production in only, instead of using daily injections. Wouldn’t the pace of drug discovery. day. As a result, compliance can be erratic, K-cells, Wolfe is collaborating with Gustavo you rather have one treatment only?” R Toward that end, Amar and Segrè’s computational model is designed to predict all the flows of compounds between any two nodes in the metabolic network, and show the impact of removing each gene, Gastroenterologist Michael Wolfe uses a delivery truck Delivery location Cab Trailer Delivery location Promoter Structural gene one-by-one, on the virulence and growth of the organism. “This would analogy to explain how K-cells—which normally produce glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, or be very laborious experimentally,” says Segrè. “But with our model, Home Depot Home Depot K-cell GIP GIP GIP—can be made to do the job of beta-cells by produc- in less than an hour you can obtain a prediction of how the cell would ing insulin instead. The structural gene (which contains respond to the perturbation of each metabolic enzyme gene. Some gene important information leading to the production of a deletions won’t affect the organism, others will kill the bacterium, and Wal-Mart Wal-Mart -cell Insulin Insulin specific product) is analogous to the trailer containing others will reduce the amount of virulence factors that are produced.” goods to be delivered, while the promoter (which directs the expression of the gene to the correct cell at the The project is described in a paper by Amar, Segrè, and bioinfor- appropriate time) is comparable to the cab and driver. matics postgraduate students Varun Mazumdar and Evan S. Snitkin in   By placing the GIP promoter in front of the insulin gene, the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Bacteriology. Results of this Home Depot Home Depot K-cell GIP Insulin Wolfe can “trick” K-cells into delivering a different set of ongoing research can be found at http://ohmics.bu.edu/. R goods—insulin—in diabetic mice.

Wal-Mart Wal-Mart -cell Insulin GIP To view more online, visit: To view more online, visit:  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009

24 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 25 Research Year of Darwin

A diagram representing the divergence of species, from Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859).

Insights Evolutionary

Rightly or wrongly, the greatest contributions to knowledge are often boiled down to a single word. Thomas Edison: lightbulb. Marie Skłodowska-Curie: radioactivity. Albert Einstein: relativity. Charles Darwin: evolution. But, in fact, Darwin wasn’t the first to propose a theory of evolution, he was first to explain how evolution works, through the mechanism of natural selection. a century and a half after Darwin published his ideas, scientists are continuing to expand our understanding of how and why natural selection occurs. At BU, biochemists are revealing the importance of DNA’s shape in genetic expression and mutation, while biologists are studying the genes of sea anemones and the behavior of treefrogs to explain the history of evolutionary change. And this year—the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and 150th anniversary of his On the Origin of Species—scientists here are joining with colleagues throughout the University, from chefs in the Gastronomy Program to actors in the School of Theatre, in a yearlong celebration of Darwin’s life and work.

26 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 27 Research Year of Darwin

“DNA is not a perfectly uniform double them, including more than 700 mutations studied by the BU team, exist among the remaining 98 percent of base pairs, whose role is understood helix. There are subtle differences in the less well. “They’re out there in terra incognita,” says Tullius, “where you shape of the molecule.” have a very hard time figuring out what went wrong and why this particular change led to heart disease or dementia.” A focus on DNA shape offers a new way to interpret these mutations. The next step will be to expand this analysis to the entire genome, creating a topographical DNA map that includes identification of bio- logically important regions through comparisons with other mammals, transcription proteins that bind to different DNA shapes, and mutations that affect those structures. “There’s all this stuff that’s invisible to us now,” says Tullius, “but we’re getting a clue about what’s happening out there.”

DNA Molecular Topography Our Anemone Ancestor By Bari Walsh

Could a tiny sea anemone from the salt marshes of New England reveal some of the secrets of evolution? Associate Professor of Biology John Finnerty thinks so. His lab has become internationally known as a center of research into an important new model animal for evolutionary A chromosome progressively unfolds as chromatin, the 30 nanometer filament, nucleosomes, the DNA double helix, and finally the letters representing the nucleotide sequence. study, the Nematostella vectensis, or starlet sea anemone—an elegant The genome of the starlet sea anemone, Nematostella vectensis, has a surprising amount name for a wisp of a creature the size of a grain of rice. In the lab and in in common with that of humans, including a representative of one of the genes involved in breast cancer. Here, an adult female floats next to a mass of eggs while a “two-headed” its native estuaries, Nematostella offers a fresh angle on the evolution- anemone undergoes a form of asexual reproduction. Shape Counts in DNA’s Code ary development of humans and on the effects of climate change. By Chris Berdik Finnerty’s team attempts to explain biodiversity by comparing animal genomes and pinpointing areas of “novelty and innovation”—points The double helix of DNA—the elegant simplicity of four base pairs con- “Mutations occur randomly,” explains Parker. “But they’re at which one genome is not like another. In seeking to understand what nected in long, twisting strands that write the genetic instructions for all rejected in functionally important areas”—meaning that genetic muta- makes humans human, for example, the researchers look at the genomes life—is what Francis Crick and James Watson discovered in 1953. tions that alter vital functions won’t be passed on because organisms The fruit fly and the worm, two of the most common model organ- of simpler creatures and try to identify the variations that ultimately led They didn’t know the half of it. with those mutations won’t survive to reproduce. The genetic coding isms in biology, provide a glimpse back in genetic time to an early stage to human complexity. A collaboration of Boston University and National Institutes of for these important functions is said to be “conserved” or “constrained” in animal evolution, Finnerty says, but the sea anemone “takes us to an Biologists have generally assumed that “there were going to be Health (NIH) scientists has found that the shape of DNA—the mol- by evolution. even earlier point in time.” It shares 80 percent of our genes, including lots of innovations in the human genome that make us complex,” says ecule’s width and its nooks and crannies—may be as important as the A few years ago, other researchers did a similar cross-species “some really interesting animal-specific traits,” like nerve cells, muscle Finnerty. “The first animal genomes we compared ourselves with were base-pair sequences in translating genetic codes into living organisms. comparison and found that about 6 percent of the genome section they cells, and even signs of a bilateral body plan, as Finnerty first reported Drosophila [the fruit fly] and nematode [the roundworm]. Certain Their findings, which appeared in the March 12, 2009, online edition studied was constrained by evolution. But that study looked only at base in Science in 2004, something long thought to be the exclusive domain genes were present in us and absent in them, and so the assumption was of Science, could revolutionize genomics and help unravel the genetic pairs. The BU researchers incorporated the shape of each sequence in of so-called higher animals. that these might be some of the inventions that helped make us who we underpinnings of disease. their comparison, using an algorithm developed by Parker. When shape “Some of the things that we thought were human inventions, are.” “DNA is not a perfectly uniform double helix,” says Chemistry was taken into account, the percentage of the genome that appeared to because they were missing in the fruit fly and the nematode, were actu- Professor Tom Tullius, who collaborated on the research with bioin- be constrained doubled. ally present in Nematostella,” says Finnerty. “That suggests that not formatics doctoral students Stephen Parker and Loren Hansen, along According to Tullius, this indicates that a lot of DNA’s function may only are those genes not human inventions, but that they trace their with researchers at NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute be determined by the molecule’s shape, even if a few base pairs have legacy way back in animal evolution—that the basic animal blueprint (NHGRI) led by NHGRI investigator Elliott Margulies. “There are subtle been shuffled across many generations. may be very, very old.” differences in the shape of the molecule that are very important to the The researchers also found that DNA shape alters much more as a In a recent article in the journal Genome, Finnerty and his former binding of proteins.” These proteins, known as transcription factors, result of genetic mutations known to cause disease or biological change doctoral student James Sullivan report that an unexpectedly high allow DNA to produce yet more proteins and also to regulate when, versus mutations that aren’t known to impact any biological function. proportion of human disease genes are present in this simple animal. where, and how many of these vital compounds are created. “What that means is that larger structural changes correspond to “It turns out, for example, that there’s a really good representative in Tullius and his fellow researchers compared a well-studied 1 per- biological consequences,” says Parker. Nematostella of one of the genes involved in breast cancer,” Finnerty cent of the human genome (30 million base pairs of DNA) to correspond- This could impact the booming field of research on associations says. “That just blows people’s minds, because that’s a very mammalian ing segments of DNA from 36 mammals, including mice, chimpanzees, between genetic mutations and disease. Only a fraction of mutations disease. But this is a gene that has an ancient history, and sometimes and rabbits. They were looking for overlaps, believing that if a portion of known to impact biological function exist among the 2 percent of the understanding the history can help inform the medical studies. You can the genome is the same across many species, it must be important. human genome that directly codes for proteins. The vast majority of Tom Tullius John Finnerty look at how the gene evolved over hundreds of millions of years and say,

28 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 29 Research Year of Darwin

that particular change really stands out, and let’s investigate whether where Touchon’s initial research was based were shaded by a thick forest that might be important.” canopy and the third pond was much more exposed, the researchers tested It’s not only the ancient lineage of the animal that holds Finnerty’s whether this environmental cue was driving the frogs’ egg-laying behav- interest. He’s looking now at finer-scale genetic variations within ior. They created a dozen mini–pond habitats using plastic kiddie pools, Nematostella populations, measuring how different groups react to placing half of the pools in the forest and half in a nearby open field. Over “It will be shocking to me if environmental stresses. “Nematostella live in estuaries, which are really a series of nights, they put a single pair of breeding frogs into each pool, Dendropsophus ebraccatus is the only in the crosshairs of a lot of the impacts we make on the planet. These choosing frogs from all three ponds and covering the habitats with a cage guys are like the canary in the coal mine,” he says. to ensure that each breeding pair had exclusive use of the area. frog that does this, because nature With his students, he’s comparing these sea anemones from South Indeed, as reported in the May 27, 2008 issue of the Proceedings of Carolina, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Nova Scotia, finding that the National Academy of Sciences, the frogs deposited the majority of their just doesn’t work that way.” “some can grow faster at higher temperatures, or they can regenerate eggs in water when in the exposed habitats and the majority of their eggs faster at higher temperatures, and that’s of course very relevant for cli- on land in the more shaded habitats. It didn’t matter which of the three mate change.” natural ponds the frogs originally came from, says Touchon. “Even frogs “We think these guys live under the mantra ‘adapt or die,’” Finnerty from ponds where we’d never seen eggs in the water laid eggs aquatically says. “They can’t really move north with increasing temperatures, as we when placed in the sunnier areas,” he says. believe some species are doing, like the maples in Vermont. We think it’s The eggs appear to survive both on land and in water by not being Biologist Karen Warkentin and postdoctoral a great model to understand how other animals might adapt.” extremely well suited for either environment: hourglass treefrog eggs fellow Justin Touchon in the field in Panama, deposited on land need rain to survive; eggs deposited in water drown if where they discovered that the hourglass they’re too far from the water’s surface. treefrog, left and below, is capable of lay- Flexible Frog—An Evolutionary Find ing eggs on land and in water—a previously Touchon’s more recent experiments testing frogs’ reactions to By Chris Berdik and Corinne Kator unknown example of plasticity that could shed aquatic predators have produced similarly interesting results. “It definitely light on the evolutionary transition from aquatic You might call it the curious incident of the frogs in the night. appears that the frogs can detect cues from predators in the water, in addi- to terrestrial egg-laying in other frog species. At two tropical ponds in Panama a few years ago, biologist Justin tion to variation in the canopy,” he says. “So they’re really able to assess, in Touchon—then a BU graduate student, now a postdoctoral research fel- a very fine-tuned manner, the quality of the habitat for their eggs.” low—was researching the eggs and tadpoles of the hourglass treefrog This discovery of behavioral flexibility in laying eggs on land or in (Dendropsophus ebraccatus), known to lay its eggs terrestrially, on vegeta- water, says Warkentin, may add to our understanding of how evolution tion above water. A third pond nearby was filled with the same species, but takes place. Some scientists, she says, believe phenotypic plasticity—the the plants over it lacked any visible egg clutches. Intrigued by the absence ability of an organism to change its traits or behaviors in response to its of eggs at the third pond, Touchon and Karen Warkentin, a biology profes- environment—plays an important role in evolution, but without being sor, staked out the pond one night and were amazed to see frogs laying eggs able to travel back in time to watch evolution unfold, they’ve had difficulty in the water, on submerged vegetation. testing this hypothesis. Discovering plasticity in a contemporary species Until that moment, all 5,000 or so frog species were thought to lay creates opportunities both for experimental work to test how natural either aquatic eggs—which are susceptible to drying out if stranded out of selection acts on egg-laying sites and for comparative research to assess the water—or terrestrial eggs, vulnerable to drowning if submerged. None was role of plasticity in the evolutionary transition to laying eggs on land. believed to do both. And Warkentin suspects they’ll find more frog species that display Warkentin was fascinated by their find and urged Touchon to conduct such plasticity, providing additional evidence. “It will be shocking to me if further research. The possible implications for our understanding of evolu- Dendropsophus ebraccatus is the only frog that does this, because nature tion, she says, are what make this discovery so intriguing. just doesn’t work that way,” she says, explaining that scientists likely Laying eggs on land is an evolutionarily derived behavior: the ances- haven’t noticed this plasticity before because they haven’t been looking tors of all modern frogs laid eggs exclusively in water (as most still do), for it. “This could be an example of how thinking you know the answer can but at various times long ago, evolutionary pressures led some frogs to blind you to something that’s right under your nose.” start laying their eggs on land, forming new branches on the frog family Touchon and Warkentin’s discovery may also help answer ques- tree. Studying a frog species that displays both egg-laying behaviors, says tions about why this particular evolutionary change—the transition from Warkentin, could provide insights into how and why the evolutionary aquatic to terrestrial reproduction—occurred. Researchers have many change from aquatic to terrestrial reproduction took place. ideas about what evolutionary pressures led to the change; finding a frog But before they could consider these larger evolutionary questions, that can deposit eggs on land and in water, Touchon and Warkentin say, Warkentin and Touchon first had to verify that the hourglass species allows them to manipulate the environment and—for the very first time— truly could lay eggs both on land and in water. Because the two ponds experimentally test hypotheses about these pressures.

To view more online, visit:  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009

30 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 31 Research Year of Darwin Research Snapshot BY Chris Berdik

Smart Tissue

Every year, Sitaram Emani and his fellow cardiac Wong has been working to perfect a tissue- the cells because you surgeons at Children’s Hospital Boston operate growing technique pioneered by Teru Okano, can’t just throw these on hundreds of kids who need a new bit of tis- director of the Institute of Advanced Biomedical cells together and sue to repair faulty blood vessels. The current Engineering and Science at Tokyo Women’s hope they become options for the patches and arterial grafts used Medical University. Instead of seeding cells on a tissue.” Take away by the surgeons—tissue harvested from pigs, a biodegradable scaffold, Okano developed a the scaffold and the cows, or human cadaver donors—may work for way to culture sheets of a patient’s cells onto an engineered patches a while, but have a tendency to harden and scar, engineered “smart” material that releases the and grafts, grown constricting blood-flow. Worse, they don’t grow fully grown cell sheet in response to a change in with the patient’s along with the child’s cardiovascular system, temperature. Wong's lab teamed up with Okano's own cells, should which means, Emani says, “they may need to be group to add microstructure to these cell sheets come very close to replaced every couple of years,” requiring several by printing a pattern of proteins directly onto the matching the child’s follow-up surgeries. "smart" material to generate microstructured cell Joyce Wong naturally growing emani has tried growing tissue on bio- sheets. Elizabeth Bartolak-Suki, director of R&D arterial tissue. degradable polymer scaffolds, using sheep as for the Massachusetts-based biomedical startup the work earned Wong a 2008 Individual patients, but the results have been disappointing. CelluTraf, has been helping Wong fine-tune the Biomedical Research Award from the Hartwell “It feels like you’re putting a very stiff material cell-to-cell signaling of the tissue sheets, which Foundation of Memphis. Given for exceptional into the body,” he says. Finding an alternative can be layered into patches or rolled into arterial work in applied biomedical research to advance that’s durable and grows predictably along with grafts in order to achieve a cell structure that children’s health, the award includes $100,000 the patient is what Emani calls “the holy grail” closely matches a child’s original tissue, ensuring of funding annually for three years. of tissue engineering. And now, he may have durability and predictable growth. Wong will use some of the money to build found it, thanks to an international collabora- “You want it to grow in a particular way, and a customized “bioreactor” that can mimic the tion of researchers led by Joyce Wong, a Boston not to overgrow,” which can lead to blockage, physiological conditions of a child’s cardiovas- University associate professor of biomedical says Wong. “We want to understand the basic cular system, including temperature, pressure, engineering. science of what’s controlling the behavior of and fluid flow. When the system is completed, hopefully by the end of 2009, Wong and her colleagues will be able to observe the growth and performance of engineered tissue under near-to-life conditions. Detecting Bad News Biomarkers In the meantime, they’re busy testing Scientists from Boston logical study begun in 1948 by the engineered tissue’s biochemistry, University and the National the NHLBI and run by BU since assessing its strength with a stretching Heart, Lung, and Blood 1971 under NIH contract. machine, and poking it with needles to Students in the College of Fine Arts took a non-realistic approach to their production of Peter Parnell’s Trumpery, Institute (NHLBI) are tracking Currently, clinicians ensure it can be properly sutured. which explores the tensions and apprehensions behind Darwin’s long wait to publish his theory of natural selection. down two of America’s big- assess their patients’ risk for In addition to engineering cell sheets gest killers: heart attack and cardiovascular disease based with human cells specially harvested stroke. largely on broad indicators from blood vessels, Wong is also work- Darwin’s Delay They will be looking for such as blood pressure and ing with sheep cells in order to test By Corinne Kator new biomarkers—disease cholesterol—relatively blunt the new tissue in Emani’s animal mod- warning signs in the form of tools for identifying who is els, and with induced pluripotent stem Charles Darwin began formulating his theory of evolution by natural University Theatre in May 2009 as their contribution to the Greater proteins, small molecules, or at risk, says Daniel Levy, Tissue sheets engineered cells—grown cells genetically reprogrammed Boston Darwin Bicentennial celebration. selection in the 1830s but didn’t publish his first paper on the topic until genes that are screened for in director of the Framingham from a patient’s own cells into an embryonic-like state and thus capable 1858—more than 20 years later. Darwin’s biographers propose widely Trumpery depicts Darwin’s reluctant race to secure his legacy as the blood tests. The multipronged Heart Study and of the NHLBI may mean fewer surgeries of developing into any type of tissue—being varying explanations for this two-decade gap. Some paint Darwin as father of natural selection by completing and publishing On the Origin of investigation is known col- Center for Population Studies. and fewer complications for developed by several researchers at BU’s medi- children who need arterial a careful collector of facts, who patiently waited to publish until he’d Species before a young British biologist, Alfred Russel Wallace, can trump lectively as the Systems “There are a lot of people cal school, including Darrell Kotton, an assistant grafts and patches to repair gathered sufficient evidence for his theory. Others describe years of him by publishing his own similar ideas. In the play, the quest nearly shat- Approach to Biomarker who don’t have one particular professor of medicine in the pulmonary section. faulty blood vessels. For Wong, the research is more than aca- hesitation and handwringing as Darwin stewed over the possible social ters Darwin: “If I finish, I’m a killer,” his character says. “I murder God.” Research in Cardiovascular risk factor that stands out demic. She has a niece and nephew who were and religious ramifications of publishing his ideas. While more fiction than fact, the play succeeds in revealing, in Disease (SABRe) and is as very elevated,” says Levy, born with congenital heart problems, and Wong’s The latter interpretation provides the basis for Trumpery, a drama Petosa’s words, “human truths,” and audiences at the BU Theatre were funded by $7.6 million who is also a professor in the School of Medicine. “They father had a heart attack when she was in gradu- by American playwright Peter Parnell. School of Theatre Director Jim riveted by its exploration of the tensions between science and faith—as from the NHLBI, part of the National Institutes of Health. might have marginal rates of ate school. “You sit in all these seminars and read Petosa and an all-student cast and crew brought the play to the Boston compelling now as they were in Darwin’s day. R Researchers will analyze various risk factors. And if we all these papers on heart problems,” she says. blood samples from approxi- had better means of identify- “But when they happen to someone close to you, mately 7,000 participants in ing their risk early on, we they take on a much more personal meaning.” R the Framingham Heart Study, might be able to design better To view more online, visit: a multigenerational epidemio- interventions.” To view more online, visit:  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009

32 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 33 Research Snapshot BY Cassandra Nelson

Myth, Mexico, and the Movies

So blurred is the line between fact and fiction in “They would alter life, and then they would ¡Viva la Revolución! accounts of the Mexican Revolution that some reports present it as real life,” says Pineda. “The revolution have filmmakers, and not generals, calling the shots. was shaped by film, and would have taken a very dif- The Mexican Revolution began in 1910, when “It is claimed, though it has not yet been con- ferent course if it hadn’t been for film.” President Porfirio Díaz was overthrown after firmed, that Pancho Villa would alter the course of later, cinema would become a medium well 30 years of dictatorial rule. An ambitious his battles according to the contractual demands of suited to telling the story of the revolution. Russian, but unequal modernization campaign during the Mutual Film Company. ‘There is no more light, so American, and Italian directors each portrayed the his presidency had benefitted urban centers you have to start the battle tomorrow’—things like revolution in a different way, says Pineda, for political “They would but left the countryside destitute and that,” says Adela Pineda, and historical reasons. alter life, and robbed poor farmers of their land. an associate profes- russian directors, including Sergei Eisenstein, Conditions were ripe for sor of Spanish who is saw the revolution as Mexico’s entrée onto the politi- then they an agrarian revolution when the working on a book about cal world stage and a communist call to arms. His assassination of Díaz’s successor, film’s influence on the ambitious three-part Viva Mexico!, which was never would present Francisco Madero, in 1913, touched off Mexican Revolution and completed and is extant only in fragments, was meant violence across the country. As factions with the revolution’s long to show the world, “Look, this can happen! This is hap- it as real life. different agendas struggled for power, “revo- afterlife in 20th-century pening in Mexico. See that peasant, that Indian, is now lution erupted on many sides of the country,” world cinema. Emiliano Zapata with a gun and a consciousness.” The Mexican says Associate Professor of Spanish Adela Pineda, a special- american directors saw Mexico as a new fron- Pineda, until “there were so many revolutions ist in turn-of-the-last- tier—a way to put the brave and lonesome cow- Revolution was taking place together, they really didn’t know century Latin American boy, out of work since the United States realized shaped by film which was the main one.” literature, came at her its Manifest Destiny, back into a job. In films like Fighting continued well into the 1930s, topic in a sidewise fash- The Magnificent Seven, The Wild Bunch, and The and would have ceasing only after a series of assassina- Adela Pineda ion. Initially curious Professionals, says Pineda, “cowboys decided to cross tions and the establishment in 1938 of the about the role of intel- the border and look for another West, which was the taken a very Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), or lectuals in the Mexican Mexican Revolution.” It’s no coincidence, she notes, Institutionalized Revolution Party, which Revolution, she soon realized that their importance that these films were produced in the 1960s, at a time different course would remain in control of the Mexican gov- came later, after the armed conflict, when painters when Americans “were questioning the role of indi- ernment for more than 60 years. and writers such as Diego Rivera, Mariano Azuela, vidualism in society” following an era of conformity if it hadn’t been Pineda attributes the PRI’s long-lived Martín Luis Guzmán, and José Vasconcelos “worked and McCarthyism. for film.” success to the party’s skill “in sustaining the for a cultural revolution which was going to support Meanwhile in Italy, “spaghetti Westerns” were myth of the revolution, the belief that we won a revolutionary state.” largely parodies of their American counterparts, the revolution and this is a democratic coun- What she discovered instead was a quirk of although a few scriptwriters and directors did use try,” while noting the citizenry’s willingness timing that saw film emerge as a medium just as the films set in revolutionary Mexico—most famously A to overlook the contradictions inherent in revolution erupted in 1910, a coincidence that was Bullet for the General—as vehicles for political com- the party’s premise and name. “How can you to have profound and lasting effects on both art and mentary on the “postcolonial movements then taking have a revolution that is institutionalized?” life. “The history of film and the history of the revolu- place in such countries as Cuba and Algeria.” In these she asks. “That is not a revolution any more!” tion run parallel, and this is where my interest comes films, says Pineda, “the Mexican Revolution is not But the greatest triumph to come out of from,” says Pineda. “The Mexican Revolution was really the Mexican Revolution, but a way to discuss the Mexican Revolution, according to Pineda, from the very beginning, because of the presence of the dialectic between the colonizer and colonized.” was the formation of a national identity. film, a cinematic myth.” she is fascinated by the way that the same his- Colonization left a legacy in which European among the military and political leaders vying torical events can have such wide-ranging and long- values were the norm—Díaz’s vision for power, some caudillos quickly grasped the new lasting appeal, and doesn’t shy away from a prismic of a modern Mexico City, for medium’s utility in advancing their cause and ensuring version of the past—in which colors and shadows are instance, was essentially a replica them a place in history. In this regard, Francisco Villa constantly changing—to explain why the Mexican of Paris, right down to an Avenida was one of the most adept. “Though he was not an Revolution has provided ample cinematic fodder. de la Reforma modeled on the educated, lettered man,” says Pineda, “Villa was a very “That’s the way history is, really,” Pineda says. Champs-Élysées—and indigenous intelligent man, shrewdly forging his own legend.” “We always try to find very coherent discourses Clockwise from above: and mestizo, or mixed race, populations were He turned public opinion in his favor through his because that’s what gives us peace, but I think it is A movie poster for Viva not taken into account at all. collaborative effort with the Mutual Film Company in more like oral traditions. There are so many ways to Zapata! (1952); revolutionary “During the 19th century, Mexico’s cul- 1914—a biopic entitled The Life of General Villa, with tell the same story, because the same story has so generals Pancho Villa and tural identity was incomplete,” says Pineda. Emiliano Zapata (seated, actor Raoul Walsh in the title role, “but only as young many meanings.” R “Its project of nationhood was an all-encom- l–r) in the presidential palace passing model that denied cultural and social Pancho Villa, because the older Pancho Villa was going in Mexico City, December 4, to be Pancho Villa as himself.” In his memoir, Walsh 1914; a band of Villa’s men, difference. When those formerly excluded recalls that the scenes depicting soldaderas—women, nicknamed the Dorados or Mexicans—the Indians, the poor farmers, usually wives and mothers of soldiers, who kept camp “Golden Ones,” before the and the mestizos—stepped into the crossfire with the men and served as cooks and nurses—were To view more online, visit: siege of Ciudad Juarez. of the revolution, Mexicans gained a cultural filmed using prostitutes rather than actors.  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009 consciousness of who they were.”

34 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 35 Research Year of Astronomy by Kimberly Cornuelle

“The star’s so bright and the planet’s so dim, you can’t see the planet. It would be like trying to see someone holding a match, behind someone holding a floodlight.”

Left: A hexagonal deformable mirror comprised of 331 ultraflat silicon mirror segments. Right, clockwise from lower right: one of Jupiter’s moons, Io, as seen from Earth without adaptive optics; two images of Io taken by the W. M. Keck Observatory with a telescope outfitted with adaptive optics, which provide a level of detail comparable to the fourth image, taken by the Galileo spacecraft orbiter.

Eyes on the Skies Adaptive optics designed by Since Galileo’s time, telescopes have focused on faint blobs and the light coming back from that and say, ‘Oh, there’s carbon dioxide, or mechanical engineer Thomas splotches, but Thomas Bifano, director of the Photonics Center at oxygen there, and there might be people living there.” Bifano enabled the first direct Boston University, has helped fine-tune those discoveries, making them Last year, scientists had the first direct observation of exoplan- observation of exoplanets, including the three seen here a little clearer. Bifano’s research with silicon microelectromechanical ets—planets circling other stars, including Fomalhaut, a bright star 25 orbiting planetary system (MEMS) deformable mirrors allows for high-resolution, high-contrast light-years from Earth—and a star called HR 8799, 128 light-years from HR 8799, in 2008. astronomical telescope compensation with adaptive optics. Using a Earth. Instead of launching a telescope into space to avoid Earth’s messy semi-conductor fabrication process, Bifano’s foundry made the technol- atmosphere, which tends to meld the light of far-flung planets with its ogy accessible to the scientific community. nearby star, astronomers used adaptive optics. The precisely controlled Astronomers were able to find massive black holes at the merger of warping of the deformable mirror straightens out distorted light. two distant galaxies with adaptive optics, and in our own solar system, “We had found exoplanets, but we’d found them by watching a star deformable mirrors have shown the rings of Uranus, and allowed BU ‘wobble,’ as a planet orbits the star. But the star’s so bright, and the plan- professors Jeffrey Baumgardner, Jody Wilson, and Michael Mendillo to et’s so dim, you can’t see the planet,” says Bifano. “It would be like trying see the sodium tail of Mercury. to see someone holding a match, behind someone holding a floodlight. The “One of the big goals for astronomy is to not only peer deeper into way you see the planet is to make the telescope’s optics perfect, and the the universe, but also more precisely, so that I could see a tiny, Earth-like deformable mirror helps with that.” planet around a bright star,” says Bifano, a member of the University’s This February, Bifano’s career-long research in micro-deformable Center for Space Physics and the Fraunhofer Center for Manufacturing mirrors for astronomical telescopes earned him the prestigious Bepi Innovation. Bifano, with College of Engineering alumnus Paul Bierden, Colombo Prize. After a week of competing with four other finalists from co-founded Boston Micromachines Corp., a business leader in the produc- around the world, he received the prize during a daylong ceremony at Spatial Relations tion of deformable mirrors for astronomy, defense, and bio-imaging. “And the University of Padua in Italy—the same university where Galileo if I can see an Earth-like planet around a bright star, then I can measure chaired the mathematics department from 1592 to 1610. How do you see the invisible? Four hundred years ago, Galileo Galilei used a little help. “It was thrilling to win,” says Bifano, “and deeply rewarding to be Improving on telescope designs by Hans Lippershey, he turned his telescope to the sky a finalist presenting my research about telescopes in a room named for and observed for the first time the cratered surface of the moon, discovered four satel- Galileo, on the 400th anniversary of his first pointing a telescope toward the sky in Padova.” lites of Jupiter, and resolved nebular patches into stars. With lenses and mirrors, Galileo’s design allowed the human eye to see into Mapping the Final Frontier space. This year, the International Year of Astronomy marks the anniversary with a Nathan Schwadron’s work with the Interstellar Boundary Explorer global appeal by the International Astronomical Union and UNESCO to expand our (IBEX) is expanding the realm of astronomical discovery a little closer to home—mapping the edges of our solar system. Because the solar understanding of our place in the universe by viewing the day- and night-time sky. system lacks clear definition—unlike, say, a room with four distinct walls—finding out where it ends and the rest of the Milky Way begins is less straightforward than it sounds. Schwadron, now an associate professor of astronomy at BU, was at Thomas Bifano Nathan Schwadron the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, when he and

36 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 37 Research Year of Astronomy Research Snapshot BY Tricia Brick

He Speaks in Your Voice, American

Dave McComas, NASA’s principal investigator for IBEX, wrote the origi- Gene Andrew Jarrett began his 2006 book African American writers have long understood Outer Heliosheath Jarrett, who has nal IBEX proposal. Deans and Truants with a deceptively simple that the way a group is represented in literature edited several col- Launched into space in October 2008 on the back of a Pegasus-XL question: What is African American literature? can influence or transform how the members lections of Dunbar’s rocket, the IBEX satellite is designed to detect where the solar wind, the Termination Shock (TS) Hydrogen Wall The term, after all, refers not merely to the of that group are perceived—and, by extension, writings, is now outward flow of ionized solar gas that creates the heliosphere, collides subject matter of the works it describes but how they are treated—in life outside of books. at work on his Following the Civil War, for example, a new lit- with the interstellar medium, an accumulation of material released from to literature that both represents the African biography. Inner Heliosheath American experience and is written by authors erary type began to appear in works by African the stars in our galaxy and dispersed through stellar winds, novae, and “Paul Laurence who are themselves black. But what, then, of American authors. Known as the “New Negro”— supernovae. The mission is led by the Southwest Research Institute, Dunbar was a man of black authors who have written works without in contrast to the “Old Negro,” the submissive, contradictions,” says Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lockheed Martin Advanced black characters? Or of those who are of mixed unrefined, dialect-speaking plantation slave— Jarrett. “Whereas Technology Center. race? “You can’t take this question for granted, this figure was well dressed and well educated, other writers of his Schwadron’s lab collects and processes images and other informa- Nose because it’s at the heart of so many questions a speaker of formal English who was culturally time were work- Helio Tail Gene Andrew Jarrett tion sent back about the interstellar medium, revealing global properties Sun of human identity and, in particular, race,” says sophisticated and politically active; a character, ing with New Negro of the termination shock that separates our heliosphere from the local Jarrett, an associate professor of English. in other words, who might inspire fondness and images, he was, in the editor of such books as African American admiration in readers, rather than an object of interstellar medium. Interstellar his poetry, working with images of the Old “For years we’ve built astronomy on photons,” says Schwadron. “In Neutral Atoms Literature Beyond Race: An Alternative Reader and pity or scorn. Negro in order to make money and to achieve our case, we’re actually not looking at photons, we’re looking at ener- The New Negro: Readings on Race, Representation, the poet, novelist, and essayist Paul fame. And yet in some ways he was ahead of Laurence Dunbar could have been a model getic neutral atoms that are born on the edge of our solar system.” and African American Culture, 1892–1938 (with his time. He wanted to be considered not as a Harvard’s Henry Louis Gates, Jr.), Jarrett has for the New Negro type. Born to former slaves In space, charged particles interact with electromagnetic fields. But black writer but just as a writer, yet in that time Radio Emissions spent his career studying racial representation in in 1872, Dunbar became one of the most cel- when a particle is neutral and has no charge, it has no way to interact after slavery, perhaps society was not ready for American literature—in particular, how African ebrated black authors of his generation for a someone like him. Because of the expectations with those fields and it moves in straight lines, much like a photon. The Americans have been understood both as char- series of poems that were pastoral panegyrics people had, he couldn’t be just a writer, he had IBEX team uses the energetic neutral atoms to measure the energetic acters in and as authors of literary works over the to the Old Negro, written in dialect and much Heliopause Deflected Ions Bow Shock to be ‘the poet laureate of the Negro race.’ That particles in the medium around the solar system to image plasmas, just last two centuries. His Deans and Truants looks lauded for capturing an “authentic black voice,” was the burden he had to bear.” like light. at black authors throughout American history says Jarrett. today, in the wake of Obama’s election “Whereas people have been sending probes out to image individual The IBEX satellite launched in October 2008 is now beginning to who have used literature to challenge beliefs But the dialect poems that earned Dunbar to the presidency, Jarrett asks whether soci- sections of the cocoon around Earth, the Earth’s magnetosphere, now send back data about the Termination Shock, one of several plasma about race that were accepted as truths in their a reputation during his lifetime as the “poet ety might finally be catching up with Dunbar. boundaries that surround and protect our Solar System from the with these neutral atoms, we can actually image the whole thing,” says day. And in his forthcoming book Representing laureate of the Negro race”—a well-intentioned “Some people say that we are living in a harsh radiation environment of the local galactic medium. Outside Schwadron. “For the first time, images showed us that these are global the Race: The Politics of African American Literature designation, albeit one based on a tacit assump- post-racial world,” Jarrett says. “Whether or the Termination Shock, a fast supersonic flow of solar wind (shown from Jefferson to Obama, Jarrett examines the tion of difference in kind and ability between boundaries surrounding us, these are global dynamics, and suddenly the here in green) abruptly changes into a much slower hot plasma not that’s true, perhaps today people are will- political implications of African American lit- races—represented only a small part of his field completely changed.” (orange), which is then deflected back and into the Sun’s tail. ing to entertain the notion that a person of erature—from the effects of Phillis Wheatley’s oeuvre. He was also the author of many poems While Schwadron was developing the IBEX proposal in 2004, Beyond that is the heliopause, which separates the solar wind from African descent could be a writer rather than the galactic plasma, and perhaps also a bow shock or bow wave, poetry on Thomas Jefferson’s thinking to the role in the American Romantic and Victorian styles, an African American writer. If I were writing Voyager I, an individual probe launched in 1977, hit the termination where the galactic plasma is first deflected around the heliosphere. that Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father has works in formal English on topics of nature, Deans and Truants today, I might begin differ- shock of the heliosphere, entering the heliosheath. Voyager II hit the had in shaping the bipartisan, pragmatic political love, and other subjects popular at that time. ently. Perhaps a new question could be: Why termination shock in 2007. The measurements that the Voyager sent culture of his presidency. Additionally, he wrote four novels and more do we still have African American literature back recorded only one specific location and time—two pinpricks in the like other authors who have spoken on than 100 short stories, only some of which as a category? Maybe we should just say fabric of the interstellar boundary. behalf of historically disenfranchised groups, focused on the African American experience. ‘American literature.’” R “Voyager I made the first measurements of the termination shock, which was amazing, because it was the actual discovery of it,” he says. “But at the end of the day, it was just the measurement of those two “Voyager I made the first mea- Best known to his contempo- points, and that’s all you get. With IBEX, we get to see the whole thing.” surements of the termination raries for a series of poems The astronomy department at BU is shaping the future by merging written in African American astronomy and space science, says Schwadron. “IBEX is pushing the shock…With IBEX, we get to see dialect, Paul Laurence Dunbar frontier of space science, of what we can detect locally, into the realm of was actually a prolific and what we know about the galaxy. IBEX is about bringing the two worlds the whole thing.” varied author whose works include five novels, four story of astronomy and space science together. collections, twelve volumes of “Astronomy is all about seeing what we haven’t seen before, discov- poems, and one play. ering what we haven’t discovered,” he says, likening IBEX to Dr. Seuss’s classic children’s book Horton Hears a Who. “You have little Whos sitting in their part of the universe, and they know about the Sun, and that there’s a region outside them. But all they know is kind of the most distant properties, they’ve forgotten there’s this intermediate environment. Horton is also there, and they don’t realize it. With IBEX, there’s To view more online, visit: To view more online, visit: a discovery of how we fit in with our own cosmic environment.” R  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009

38 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 39 Research Islamic Art and Literature

Fallou Ngom hopes to build an Ajami center at BU—which already offers instruction in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and African languages—to teach the complex writing system to anthropologists, historians, and other researchers.

“This is a form of writing whose documents are as varied as all knowledge. The amazing thing is, most of these texts have never been translated.”

Found in Translation by Art Jahnke Every year, estimates of sub-Saharan literacy rates by the United “This is a form of writing whose documents are as varied as all knowl- Nations invariably discourage Western-trained educators. In 2005, edge,” says Ngom. “There are poems that deal with religion and try to teach UNESCO put the literacy rate in Niger at 18.7 percent, Senegal at 42.1 us how to be a good person. And there are poems that are more secular, like percent, and Guinea at 41.1 percent. But curiously, rural villagers in thoughts about a beautiful woman. You have historical documents, and these countries are untroubled by these numbers—they know that [fictional] tales and stories, and even texts on pharmacopoeia—what to do if nearly all of their neighbors are pretty good readers, albeit of a language you are bitten by a snake or how to heal children with a speech disorder or that happens not to be the official tongue, French. Instead, the people stomachache. The amazing thing is, we don’t even know what’s in most of there use a centuries-old writing system that applies modified Arabic these texts, because they have never been translated.” Muslim Mosaic script to a phonetic rendering of their language, be it Hausa, Wolof, Take the history of Timbuktu, for example. Everything that’s Pular, Swahili, Amharic, Tigrigna, or Berber. known about the Malian city is written in Arabic—or so it was thought What seems monolithic at first glance, rarely remains so on closer This system, called Ajami and virtually unknown to Westerners, until 1999, when a cache of Ajami documents dating from the 10th viewing. So too the art, literature, and languages of the Islamic world has been in continuous use in written communications across a swath through the 16th centuries surfaced in a private library in the great des- of Islam-influenced African countries for nearly a millennium. It was ert city. Altogether the documents total more than 500 pages, and may reflect the diversity of the times and places in which they were pro- initially created by Islamic teachers who wanted to disseminate their contain vast amounts of information about daily life in Timbuktu that duced. In explorations of manuscripts and mosques, paintings and religion among subliterate populations in Africa and later became the elite writers of Arabic would have considered too quotidian or unim- plays, three researchers at Boston University—from the departments chosen language of anticolonial nationalist resistance in the 20th cen- portant to record. But a dearth of scholars able to read Ajami means that tury. Today, says Senegal native Fallou Ngom, an associate professor of a decade later, only a handful of these documents have been translated of anthropology, art history, and comparative literature, all of whom anthropology and director of BU’s African Language Program, Ajami is into more accessible languages. are associated faculty of the BU Institute for the Study of Muslim a key that can unlock the African perspective on centuries of history, as Because Ajami requires the reader to know, at a minimum, both Societies & Civilizations—are offering new ways to see and under- well as literature, religion, and even medicine. Arabic script and the spoken language of a particular African culture, Translating Ajami texts and more importantly, equipping a rising it can be difficult and time-consuming to learn. Moreover, the tides of stand Islamic cultures, from the 10th century through today. generation of scholars with the skills to continue to do so in the future, history have not worked in Ajami’s favor: the two cultures that domi- are two goals that Ngom has set for the African Language Program, nated sub-Saharan Africa for centuries—Arab and European—were which is the first language program in the country to incorporate Ajami convinced that whatever African wisdom was preserved in the hybrid into its curriculum. writing system could not possibly have any value.

40 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 41 Research Islamic Art and Literature

“When the Europeans arrived,” Ngom says, “recognizing the exis- Hamlet of Arabia tence of an African intellectual history was tantamount to purposefully By Bari Walsh The divergent aesthetics of undermining the agenda of the colonial administration. The African had Islamic art and architecture can to be portrayed as intellectually challenged, with a history that began In the Arab world, Hamlet’s famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy is often be seen in two very different with the arrival of Europeans.” translated as “Shall we be or not be?” This linguistic nudge, which occurs tributes to Muslim rulers: the But in fact, Ngom counters, Ajami has done more than fix a record because Arabic lacks the infinitive, is telling, says Margaret Litvin, an tomb of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq assistant professor of Arabic and comparative literature who is now at (d. 1325), founder of the Tughluq of African cultures—it also helped to shape them. While Ajami did help dynasty in India, near right, and a to spread Islam in Africa, as its creators intended, it also contributed to work on a book about the diverse ways Arab writers have appropriated portrait of Ottoman Sultan Selim the emergence of regional variants of Islam in a number of sub-Saharan Shakespeares's play. The switch to “we,” says Litvin, reveals the degree to II (1524–1574). countries. These Africanized forms of Islam incorporated elements of which Arab cultural commentators see the character, and Hamlet itself, indigenous animist religions while ignoring strictures that were cultur- as a potent way to talk about “an existential threat to a valued collective marked by “bitter calls to arms directly to the people, bypassing the gov- has researched extensively, beginning in graduate school—while the ally incompatible, such as those requiring women to hide their faces and identity.” Hamlet’s dilemma mirrors a dilemma facing the Arab world as ernments.” In this era, she says, “Hamlet was a revolutionary, a righter of contemporary Safavid Empire in Persia preferred luxuriously bound those forbidding physical contact between unmarried men and women. a whole: “to exist or dissolve, to awaken politically or to slumber while wrongs, and the ‘to be or not to be’ hesitator was way downplayed.” and crafted, but unillustrated, books about mythological kings and “They interpreted the Koran in a way that would fit their social history passes by.” Toward the late seventies, dramatic defiance was largely replaced by heroes, and epic love stories. context,” he says. “Things like wearing a veil were not even part of the Looking at performances, adaptations, and citations of the play cynicism and parody, as a series of autocratic governments failed to make In 2008, Fetvacı was one of three researchers at BU to be awarded discussion.” in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and elsewhere, Litvin argues that Hamlet good on Nasserism’s promise. In recent years, Litvin says, Hamlet adapta- a three-year, $50,000 Peter Paul Career Development professorship, In anticolonial movements of the 20th century, the tool created to speaks to the region primarily as “a play about power, justice, and what tions are “about his inefficacy, his absorption in words that no one will designed to help promising junior faculty expand and enhance their spread the word of Allah was put to new purpose—and one even further to do when you’re in the middle of a political conspiracy. Your uncle has hear or heed. It becomes a kind of lament for the death of Arab national- research programs. Fetvacı used the award to travel to India, Syria, from its original aims—when it was used to spread the word of resistance stolen the election and defrauded you of the crown, you’re surrounded by ism and the days when the Arab world at least had ideals to aspire to.” Turkey, and other countries to examine and photograph historically sig- and self-reliance. villains and spies, there’s a reign of terror, and the king cuts off the heads A popular adaptation reflecting changing Arab attitudes is Forget nificant art and architecture. Highlights of her research trip included the “In Senegal,” says Ngom, “Ajami was used to disseminate among the of everyone he dislikes. Hamlet, first produced in Cairo in 1994 by Jawad al-Asadi, an Iraqi living in tomb of the emperor Akbar in Sikandra, India, and Delhi’s Qutb Minar, Murids the teachings that the people could make it by themselves, that “That’s all there in Shakespeare, but it’s a dimension of the play that’s exile in Jordan. “The first thing he does is take out any shred of suspense. a tower built in 1196 AD as a testimonial to the strength of Islam and they didn’t need the French and they didn’t need the Arabs.” been lost to many Western interpreters,” she says, who are more likely to You know exactly who’s committed the murder, Ophelia has seen the mur- which, at 238 feet, is the tallest brick minaret in the world. A poem written in Ajami at the end of World War II by the popular focus on Hamlet’s “inwardness and doubt” than on his role as a political der, and there’s no shortage of evidence,” Litvin says. “But you can’t prose- Now Fetvacı has trained her camera, and again her scholarly atten- Fulani writer Cerno Abdourahmane Bah, rues the African peoples’ his- player in a time of crisis. cute the crime because there’s no judge and no jury. Claudius is in complete tions, on Ottoman manuscripts dating to the 1500s, the height of the tory of mistreatment: This particularly Arab take on Hamlet developed as a reaction to control, running the guillotine day and night. He becomes kind of a Saddam Ottoman Empire. During that era, she says, political chicanery and pub- political changes, says Litvin, whose scholarly interests include political Hussein figure. “Even the subversive characters in the play, the gravedig- lic relations posturing by high-ranking members of the Ottoman court None of us was consulted about what we had to do. philosophy as well as literature and who is also studying Cold War–era gers, end up shoring up his power, by joking about it,” she adds. “It’s a play contributed to published and subsequently accepted revisionist history. They have been led as animals, exploited to satisfy every need, cultural ties between the Soviet Union and Arab countries for a separate about why the sword is mightier than the pen, and it’s very persuasive.” “I’m working on a monograph about identity formation during this going up and down, research project. period, how books played into it and how art helped the process along,” without knowing the reason why! “The sixties were the high point of Arab nationalism,” she says. Islam’s Visual Kaleidoscope she says. “I’m studying the ways that we think about the past and how . . . “Before the 1967 war, Egypt aspired to be a world power. There was a real certain things have come to be accepted as fact as a result of campaign- Among all nations, so numerous in the world, we were chosen: feeling that Arab countries could achieve both social justice at home and by Pamela Cooley ing and writing.” Books were a means of shaping identity, and the high- We are the black people, to work hard, and to supply contributions dignity abroad, and the theater community was eager to help.” Staging “There are multiplicities in the Islamic world,” says Emine Fetvacı, an level government officials and courtiers who financed their production That cannot be known. performances of Hamlet and other classic dramas was proof that Gamal assistant professor of art history who specializes in Islamic visual arts typically expected a starring role in exchange for their patronage. “One Abdel Nasser’s progressive government had brought Egypt and the Arab and architecture. “Islam is not homogeneous. Persian is not the same person appears to be very important to a battle described in one book Sixty years later, Ngom finds himself in a position to help the Western world up to par with the West. as Arab is not the same as Turk is not the same as Indian is not the same because it’s written by a historian he’s paying; another book shows world finally come to know the contributions of the colonized people. “That period of hope and confidence got utterly smashed by the 1967 as Pakistani—even among themselves, these people are so diverse and someone else as the hero of the same conflict because the author is his Language instruction in both Latin-based script and Ajami script in war and the resounding defeat by Israel,” Litvin continues. The mood different from one another. I tell my students to remember that we’re protégé. I have to read between the lines.” Wolof, Fuuta Jalon Pular, and Hausa is now up and running, and, in changed to one of anger and defiance, and the theater of the period was dealing with human civilization and its richness.” Fetvacı plans further travel to Islamic countries, as well as to Spain the next several years, he would like to see the program expand into an In the classroom, Fetvacı draws on her current research in Asian and Italy, and also hopes to visit the Academy of Oriental Sciences in St. Ajami-focused teaching center that would link anthropologists, histori- and Middle Eastern countries to illustrate “the diversity and the colors Petersburg, which houses a valuable collection of Persian manuscripts ans, literary scholars, and medical experts to bring long-buried knowl- of the Islamic world,” by inviting students to compare, for example, relating to Islamic art. The Peter Paul award will help her purchase digi- edge once again to light. the late 14th- and early 15th-century architecture of Timurid Iran and tal images of manuscripts for more detailed study in Boston, and she will Jennifer Yanco, a lecturer at the African Studies Center and the U.S. Central Asia, where mosques and imperial tombs were decorated with use the photos she’s taken of Islamic art during her travels as learning director of the West African Research Association, a nonprofit consor- geometric designs crafted from blue-and-white tiles, to Egyptian archi- tools in the classroom. tium of more than forty universities housed at BU, believes that Ngom’s tecture of the same period, whose structures were made completely of “I find it really important in teaching to show students that when we effort could encourage an important correction of the historical record. stone and embellished with carved inscriptions. talk about the Islamic world, we’re talking about a lot of cultural diver- “In the popular mind, Africa is often thought of as largely illiterate,” Books, like buildings, show the divergent aesthetics of Islam at any sity,” says Fetvacı. “The negative images of the Islamic world one often she says. “But Ajami documents attest to a significant history of literacy given time. In the 16th century, Ottomans in what is now Turkey had a finds in the media do not do justice to the rich history and traditions of the there, dating back to well before European colonialism. They document penchant for illustrated books on historical subjects—a genre Fetvacı Islamic world.” R history from the point of view of the people who lived it. They are valu- To view more online, visit: able parts of the human heritage.” Margaret Litvin Emine Fetvacı  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009

42 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 43 Research Putting Ideas to Work

Research Realized

Research doesn’t happen overnight. There are often years of preparation leading up to each eureka moment. Usually a similarly unglamorous period of work is needed afterwards to turn bright ideas into thought-provoking books and promising discoveries into useful, usable products. BU is committed to supporting the research process from beginning to end: encour- aging students to take an early interest and initiative in pursuing original research through Nate Wigner the Undergraduate Research Opportunities A postdoctoral research fellow in the School David Rosenbloom Jacqueline Sharon of Medicine, Nathan Wigner is investigating Early on, Professor of Social and Program; fostering corporate and government has always had an interest in translational new therapeutic approaches to reverse the Behavioral Sciences David Rosenbloom research, but after two patents immu- effects of osteoporosis, thanks to an Ignition saw how the Iternet could help make partnerships in order to test ideas in real-life nologist Jacqueline Sharon realized that Award from BU’s Office of Technology Catherine Klapperich effective strategies for fighting sub- M. Selim Ünlü and Bennett Goldberg contexts quickly and effectively; and supporting her lab alone would be hard-pressed to Development. In the process, he is also learn- With a $2.9 million Translational Partnership stance abuse widely available and The Numerical Aperture Increasing Lens (NAIL) take on the development of a new kind of ing how to align the business side of new Award from the Coulter Foundation, Assistant understandable. To date, his QuitNet technique developed by Bennett Goldberg and M. faculty through the technology development therapeutic polyclonal antibodies. So she technology with the science, in order to turn Professor of Biomedical Engineering Catherine website has helped over a million Selim Ünlü has demonstrated a five-fold improvement and transfer process. licensed the technology to Symphogen, a a promising discovery into a tangible product Klapperich is building a small, inexpensive people stop smoking, saving them over current optical technology. This high-resolution biotech company that is now in clinical that can help those suffering from bone loss. device that uses microfluidic action to extract more than $2.7 billion and 224,000 subsurface imaging technique was recently licensed to all with one goal in mind: to make sure trials for two drugs based on her ideas. “Most scientific papers begin, ‘The data sug- nucleic acids from saliva, blood, and other years of life. With support from Hamamatsu, a Japanese company that develops, man- Says Sharon, “It’s great to see that some- gests X’ or ‘there are hopes that one day it bodily fluids to isolate biomolecules. Her BU’s Community Technology Fund, ufactures, and markets optical sensors. The quicker that BU researchers are making an impact. thing we started has really turned into will provide benefit Y,’” Wigner says. “We’re “lab on a chip” would enable point-of-care QuitNet is now the world’s largest Hamamatsu can detect defects in their semiconduc- something applied, and hopefully will be actually getting to do that, as opposed to just diagnostics that could significantly reduce the and most comprehensive smoking tors, the better, in an industry where each minute’s able to help people very soon.” saying it in an introduction.” spread of infection. cessation program. delay can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

44 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 45 Research Putting Ideas to Work

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H 2 2 Her lab began developing a process for creating recombinant poly- Polyclonal antibody Target-specific recombinant select vectors encoding target-specific antibodies in clonal cells, and earned two patents on their work before deciding that short-term expression system and transfect selected antibodies polyclonal antibody the amount of money and effort needed to see the technology through to vectors into immortal mammalian cell line market was overwhelmingly prohibitive. So, in 2000, Boston University licensed the technology to Symphogen.  At the time, the Danish company had only three scientists, who initially target shared Sharon’s lab space at BU, and three executives, who flew back and forth from Denmark. Today, Symphogen is a rising star of biotech, employ- grow large cell culture and harvest ing 70 people in Copenhagen. The company has progressed steadily toward secreted antibodies producing a drug that would treat idopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and prevent hemolytic disease of the newborn, two diseases which involve Defined mixture of immortal cells producing uncommon susceptibility to bleeding. N. Venkat Venkatraman different recombinant antibodies “They’ve done a wonderful job of developing and marketing the technology and really doing production—things that my lab is neither qualified to do nor interested in doing,” says Sharon, who serves on the company’s “If you truly believe in your science scientific advisory board. “That’s the great value to the technology transfer process. I enjoy being in academia, with the freedom to pursue research at and you believe in your idea, Inspiration + Perspiration = the basic science end. But it’s been very satisfying to watch Symphogen, business-minded people pick up Commercialized and rewarding to see what we started many years ago turn into something applied that ideally will be able to help people very soon.” on that really quickly.” By cassandra Nelson and Patrick Kennedy phase of development—to demonstrate the in vivo therapeutic potential of That is also what Wigner eventually hopes to achieve with his research Known as the “silent thief,” osteoporosis affects an estimated 12 million targeting these receptors in osteoporotic mice. And without something like on osteoporosis. If his team’s in vivo research goes well, the result may be Americans over age 50 and threatens another 48 million who are at high the Ignition Award, it just wouldn’t happen.” a therapeutic that will not only stop bone loss but reverse it. This would Charting a New Geography of Work risk for developing it. Individuals with this bone disease can break a leg Ignition Awards—which are designed to help bring raw technology and be a tremendous improvement over current treatment options, which can merely by stepping off a curb, or break an arm while putting on a seat belt. business concepts to a mature enough state where they can be licensed or slow bone loss, not prevent it completely, let alone restore lost bone. Over By Jason Warshof Nate Wigner, a postdoctoral research fellow at BU’s School of used to form the basis of a new company or nonprofit social enterprise—are time, the condition “steals more than just bone,” Wigner says. “Out of fear, The changing nature of work in the 21st century requires more than a fast Medicine, is working to find a better drug to combat osteoporosis. He is just one of the many supports available to BU researchers through OTD. you’ve become that grandparent sitting alone on the beach just ‘minding Internet connection, an extra clock set to Jakarta time, and a functional coming at it from an unusual and slightly counterintuitive angle, focusing Because the process of translating scientific discoveries into tangible everyone’s shoes’ instead of playing in the sand with your family.” knowledge of outsourcing. It calls for nothing less than a paradigm shift in on the bone-restoring properties of anthrax receptors in the skeleton. “I products can be “complex and sometimes intimidating,” says Michael That’s how he described the plight of individuals with osteoporosis in the way businesses view the world, and the strengths and desires of its occu- almost wish it had a different name,” he says, both because it can be con- Pratt, director of translational research and corporate relations, he and his project proposal. “I was thinking about my mom,” he explains, “because pants, says N. Venkat Venkatraman, the David J. McGrath, Jr. Professor of fusing when people learn that what Wigner is working on has nothing to his colleagues “are pursuing a University-wide approach and working to she used to say, ‘I’ll just sit here and watch the shoes,’ and there may be a Management, Strategy & Innovation in the School of Management. do with anthrax toxicity and, he jokes, because “I’m sure my name is on support the translational process at every phase of development—from point when that’s all she can do.” Globalization 3.0 is an era in which “hugely powerful computers and some sort of governmental registry for Googling ‘anthrax’ as many times as the formation of collaborative teams, to funding and guiding translational Wigner chose not to keep emotion out of his pitch because despite communication technologies are available worldwide at a relatively low I have.” research projects toward appropriate endpoints, to identifying industry being a “straight science head,” he has learned over the past year that pre- cost,” he explains, which means that anyone who visits an Internet café in The link between osteoporosis and anthrax receptors, though collaborators and mentors to support new company development.” sentation counts. “If you truly believe in your science and you believe in Andalusia or Angkor Wat can now imagine life as an actor, CEO, or high unlikely, holds promise. But even after initial in vitro studies confirmed Additional features of their work include support for patent filings, your idea, and you’re willing to take some risks and put extra effort into it, court judge. The unprecedented scale of this global talent pool presents that these receptors are molecular targets capable of restoring bone mass, licensing, market research, start-up development, and business incuba- business-minded people pick up on that really quickly.” significant opportunities for companies—but only if they know how to Wigner knew that potential applications could be months or even years tion. OTD also collaborates with various research programs, including the Pratt and the Technology Development staff, Wigner says, have navigate what Venkatraman calls the “new geography of work.” away, if they materialize at all, and that funding is often scarce for projects Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Technology (CIMIT) and helped him understand how to align the science side of a project with the The complexity of tapping into global talent pools is just one example at this critical interim stage. the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, to support the translational research business side, in order to keep it moving forward. “They’ve been phenom- of how new contexts demand new best practices. Identifying and articulat- To take his project to the next level, he applied for an Ignition Award process and to promote collaborations between biomedical engineers and enal. I’ve never met a group of people who are so willing to sit—and yes, it’s ing these best practices—by assessing how well multinational companies from BU’s Office of Technology Development (OTD), and won. Now, says, clinicians. In a typical year at BU there are as many as 100 new technology their job, but it’s not their job to do it with a smile and be excited to talk to are making the transition to truly leveraging global talent and expertise, Wigner, his lab has “the resources to see this technology through the next disclosures, scores of U.S. patent filings, and a dozen exclusive licenses. me about the science—to sit and really plan how to carry this out.” and by generating new ideas which are then swiftly applied in the work-

46 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 47 Research Putting Ideas to Work

place via partnerships with government, academe, and industry—is the Opportunity Awaits: goal of BU’s Institute for Global Work. Undergraduate Research Left: Two computer algorithms designed Launched in 2007 with a nearly $1.7 million grant from the Keane to track the movement of individual cells by Rachel Johnson show suboptimal, top row, and optimal Institute, the institute is led by director John Henderson and educa- results. The optimal algorithm success- tion director Kathleen Curley, both professors in the Department of “You come to UROP to learn—to discover something about yourself and fully resolves the track switch for cells Information Systems. Drawing on the vision and expertise of colleagues the world,” says computer science major David House. He is one of the 5 and 16 seen in frame 36 of the sub- such as Venkatraman, they are driving the research and thought leadership more than 500 students over the last decade to be funded through BU’s optimal algorithm. Below: a monomer that will shape the next generation of global business processes. Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP). Mentored of the enzyme aldolase A, the subject of biochemistry and molecular biology Already, the institute has formed partnerships with a number of busi- individually by faculty members who oversee their projects, UROP stu- double-major Florencia Rago’s research. nesses and universities at home and abroad. So far these include American dents expand their academic perspectives by working in a true research companies Thermo Fisher, John Hancock, and Parametric Technology environment, and often make their mark by contributing original ideas Corporation, as well as Switzerland’s St. Gallen University, Israel’s Ben- and discoveries. Gurion University, and Mexico’s Monterrey Institute of Technology and With guidance from Margrit Betke, an associate professor of com- Higher Education. puter science, House is developing a computer program that helps track “We’re looking at similar kinds of questions, so the idea is to share and model cell behavior by employing computer vision techniques. results,” says Curley. “What is the future of work going to look like? How These techniques identify and measure cells automatically—with- are people going to do it? Different markets and different contexts give out the need for human intervention—and enable computers not only to “Professor Betke encouraged me to increase my biology people insights into different possibilities.” see, but to understand and predict the behavior of imaged cells. Already, For example, she says, “A lot of Israeli companies are smaller, but House and Betke have tested this program in the lab, enabling biologists knowledge in my free time in order to really understand all they’re very quick and they’re big on exporting and reaching other markets. at BU to accurately and expediently track and analyze the migration pat- What they bring to the table is this ability to test something in a demanding terns of cells for the first time. aspects of the program. We wanted to make something that market at home and then quickly try it on the European market.” Betke encouraged House to branch out into other disciplines in could expedite biological research across the board.” In Mexico, meanwhile, the emphasis is on keeping costs low, which order to create a computer program with wide relevance and broad could offer valuable insights for entrepreneurs interested in developing applications. “I knew a bit about computer science, but Professor Betke better water purification systems or other technologies for which there is encouraged me to increase my biology knowledge in my free time in a high demand in developing countries. “If you’re going to be successful in to order to really understand all aspects of the program,” he says. “We emerging economies,” Curley says, “you’re going to have to figure out how wanted to make something that could expedite biological research to do it on the cheap.” across the board.” Another UROP participant, biochemistry and molecular biology In particular, French is investigating the textual history of a well- In January 2009, the Institute for Global Work offered its first Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering Joyce Wong provided major Florencia Rago, was named a Beckman Scholar in recognition of known passage in John, called the pericope adulterae, where Jesus encoun- course for executives, a three-day seminar entitled “Making Global Work an overview of the biomaterial research community’s work in automati- her outstanding research in biological sciences. ters a woman caught in the act of adultery and famously tells the men who Work.” The well-received program, which was partially funded by the U.S. cally tracking cells, which Betke and House used to design computer pro- “As you get to upper-level classes, you have more time for things would stone her, “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to Department of Labor, was repeated in July and will be offered on a quarterly grams and algorithms that would model cellular behavior. The algorithms, that are important and interesting to you,” says Rago. In her case, that throw a stone at her” (John 8:7 NRSV). basis. A separate conference on global business practices is in the works. says House, “can be applied to a variety of biological systems—cells, mam- meant more time in Biology Professor Dean Tolan’s lab, where she is French is fascinated by the “material tradition” of the pericope adul- The institute’s international collaborations are also giving graduate mals, anything with heat. We also want to make the computer program studying aldolase—an enzyme involved in breaking down sugars such as terae—that is, why the story appears in some early manuscripts of John students in the BU School of Management an edge. By collaborating on open-source, so eventually any college can use it in many different ways.” glucose and fructose and converting them to energy—and how it recog- and not others, as well as pictorial representations of the story on two business plans with their peers at Ben-Gurion, they are gaining first-hand nizes intermediates in the breakdown process. “The more we see how Coptic pyxides, or small decorated jars—and what that implies about the experience with global virtual teams—that is, teams whose members are enzymes are able to sort through everything that’s in a cell that tries origins of the story, and about differing practices among communities of spread across different countries and continents—and also increasing our to react with them,” she explains, “the more we can understand how it believers in the early Christian church. understanding of how such teams function and how they can be most effec- might be possible to develop and manipulate the enzymes.” “My research was a strange combination of paleography, traditional tively managed. That information, in return, could provide valuable insights for historiography, art history, and even archaeology,” says French. “The goal “The current model is based on our experience with co-located doctors and scientists trying to help people who cannot metabolize at all times was to show how society shapes and influences texts, even teams,” says Curley. “It turns out that it’s very difficult to replicate that certain sugars, or those with metabolic disorders such as hereditary sacred texts. To do so I had to attempt to reconstruct worldviews, moral when teams are distributed across multiple time zones.” fructose intolerance (HFI), a condition that leads to high levels of fruc- concerns, social relationships, even patterns of trade.” The Institute for Global Work is eager to expand this program to the tose-1-phosphate, impeding the body’s ability to metabolize fructose For students whose curiosity lingers long after class is over, the undergraduate level, says Curley, “so that students have this real and prac- and resulting in severe hypoglycemia. Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program provides an ideal com- tical experience of working with their counterparts in a far-off time zone, Not all UROP projects require long hours in the lab; some require bination of structure and guidance from faculty with freedom to shape the and for whom English is not a first language.” “long hours at the library” instead, as Katie French knows well. A double scope and focus of their research projects. As House puts it, UROP offers And perhaps, some day, they will take it even further than that. Says major in classics-religion and archaeology, she is researching the Gospel undergraduates a chance “not just to think outside the box, but to move Venkatraman, “My ideal would be to get every student at BU—whether in of John with Assistant Professor of Theology Jennifer Knust, “reading the box altogether.” R the School of Management or not, and even if they never live or work out- book after book on everything from how codices were produced in antiq- side of the United States—to have exposure to their present and future role uity to the role of scribes in shaping the texts they produced.” To view more online, visit: in the global world.”  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009 A small lidded jar called a pyxis tells the New Testament story of the pericope adulterae, or the woman taken in adultery.

48 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 49 Research From the Archives BY Bari Walsh

Landscape of the mind: past, present, and poetry meet in New York’s Central Park.

“The design, finally, of the park or the battlefield or Beyond the Stacks the battle is about the design for harmony and for civil life, and for democracy.” “I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.” —Jorge Luis Borges Design for Democracy tals and moving the injured and dead off the dramatize of historical and even geological and biological material Walking through Central Park on visits to New York, the poet and battlefield—during the Civil War. The sense that’s outside the self. The lyric poem is conventionally understood as In an attention-challenged world, libraries literary scholar Rosanna Warren often traced connections between of the battlefield as another kind of “earth- the song of the self: I want, I hurt. It’s country music. I’m just trying to and archives are invaluable repositories of the landscape and its designer, Frederick Law Olmsted. “I knew that works” began to drift into her consciousness. see how far I can push it, and in which direction.” Olmsted was subject to melancholy,” she says, “and I kept seeing the Warren also learned that the land that became heritage and history, as well as incubators of external landscape of the park, with its dips and hollows, its hills and Central Park had once been filled with slaugh- A Case History the ideas and inventions that will shape the irregularities, as a landscape of the mind. I wanted to live my way into terhouses and incinerators, a place of hor- future. Right now, libraries themselves are that hunch I had.” ror. History and images intermingled, as she For David Seipp, the odyssey of a lifetime began with a proverb. As she began gathering the strands of a book of interconnected began “to see the poem as a layering, almost an As an undergraduate investigating the history of privacy rights in being invented, or reinvented, to accommo- poems on the four elements, she knew that Central Park, and Olmsted, archaeological layering, of images of slaugh- the mid 1970s, he wondered how far back one of the most venerable legal date powerful new tools for sharing knowl- would anchor the poem at the book’s core, titled “Earthworks.” And ter, out of which comes a design. I see that on maxims, “A man’s house is his castle,” could be traced. Seipp followed Rosanna Warren edge. And though the words for library and a fellowship at the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for the Civil War battlefield as well as in the park. citations back through cases much older than any legal database could Scholars and Writers allowed her just the kind of immersion she’d And Olmsted is at the center of both of them. search, to a set of medieval records called the Year Books, which con- liberty are unrelated etymologically, their wanted. Warren, the Emma Ann MacLachlan Metcalf Professor of the “The design, finally, of the park or the battlefield or the battle is tained the earliest reports of what would come to constitute English, and closeness is a happy coincidence—for, as Humanities, spent the 2008–2009 academic year at the library, reading about the design for harmony and for civil life, and for democracy,” later American, common law. Dating from 1268 to 1535, and written in the move from parchment to paper to pixels Olmsted’s papers, the books that inspired him, and other archival docu- Warren continues. “It was a quite radical thing for Olmsted and the the legal dialect of the day, called law French, the books reveal a system ments chronicling the park’s history. She also walked in the park almost commissioners of the park to design a public space that wasn’t just for of law whose principles and structure endure to this day. shows, information wants to be free. daily, photographing it in every light and season and decorating her the privileged. It was a truly democratic idea. And you could say that the Beguiled by that rich history, Seipp, now a BU professor of law, set workspace with the images. Civil War was a war to create a design for democracy, too.” about doing for medieval cases what Westlaw and Lexis do for modern Among other things, she learned that Olmsted left his work in the And in the halls of another great temple of democracy, the New ones: make them easily accessible and searchable. But in creating an park in 1861 to become the director of the Sanitary Commission—the York Public Library, Warren found the freedom she needed to test the online archive of more than 300 years of English caselaw, he’s done predecessor of the Red Cross, responsible for setting up field hospi- formal limits of the lyric poem, “to see how much it can take in and those services one better: his archive, containing translations and

50 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 51 Research From the Archives Research Snapshot BY Bari Walsh

Immigrant Song complete records of those early cases, is open access and free to use, hosted on For the past three summers, Lou Ureneck has stories of women inside those families. The Boston University’s server at www.bu.edu/law/seipp. stepped out of time, taking up residence in stereotypical immigration story is one of men, The project was launched after 2000, with support from the Ames the rural village of Loukadika, on the southern- bootstrapping their way to success. But there is Foundation, when Seipp started making records for cases dating from the first most peninsula of the Peloponnese, his ancestral a high price to be paid as a family negotiates a year of the reign of Henry IV, in 1399. Since the online database went live in homeland. His dwelling there is just steps from new culture, and very often that price is paid by the stone house where his grandmother was women. 2003, it has been searched more than a thousand times each month—22,000 born, and which she left for a new life in America “Village life in Greece had benefits and times during a single month in 2008. in 1915. drawbacks for women,” Ureneck continues. Seipp has now indexed almost 6,900 cases in final form, with key words “There are people there who are over a “They were most definitely subordinated, in a and full commentary; he has indexed more than 15,400 other cases with sum- Opening the Doors hundred years old and still remember her,” says patriarchal society, but at the same time they maries from modern scholarly editions or new translations, and will fill in Ureneck, professor and chair of the journalism had certain guarantees of stability, including missing details as he goes. department, who is writing what he calls “a economic stability. In America, they gained Each record in the database has room for 39 fields of information, including reported memoir” about a Greek family’s immi- standing, but they lost certain protections and Lou Ureneck citation numbers, the type of lawsuit, historical context, translations of argu- “These are transformational times for gration and assimilation into American life. It guarantees. It’s that balance that I’m inter- libraries,” says University Librarian ments and rulings, and the names of the court, place names after rulings, the happens to be his family he’s writing about, but ested in.” Robert Hudson, who is writing one parties, the lawyers, and the judges. Most records are also linked to images of the the story represents thousands of others—uni- Focusing on his mother, who came of age “In America, women chapter of that transformation at BU. original text, which provide a sense of just how daunting Seipp’s task has been. versal journeys of struggle, of metamorphosis, in the 1930s, Ureneck wants to explore the Hudson has been a key driver of what and of finally arriving at something that feels point of transition, common to all immigrant gained standing, but The Year Books were printed in a forbidding, black-letter typeface, with he believes is an unprecedentedly like home. families, where old cultural mores are dropped many words abbreviated or contracted, and with spellings that change even broad move by a university to retain His research has unfolded both in Greece and new ones adopted. they lost certain protec- on the same page. In indexing the cases, standardization was the biggest chal- the rights to its scholarly work and to and in Newark, New Jersey, where his family “My mother lived a small life,” he says. tions and guarantees. lenge he faced. “To make these things searchable, you want every name, every make it available to anyone, anywhere, ultimately settled. Working with a scholar of the “She was not an important person, in a histori- statute to be uniform,” Seipp says. “The names of lawyers and judges vary free of charge. Greek diaspora at Panteion University in Athens, cal sense. But her experience was a common It’s that balance that I’m greatly: there’s a judge named Babington who for a whole series of cases is After nearly two years of discus- Ureneck learned that in the 1880s one in every experience for immigrant and first-generation called Danby. It’s extremely confusing.” sion, the University Council voted in four Greeks immigrated, mostly to the United women, and I wanted to tell that story. It’s a interested in.” February to support a far-reaching, Seipp says his translations are meant to be close paraphrases and not States, to escape poverty. “In the Peloponnese,” story that needs to be told.” R though voluntary, open-access initia- “final, polished, literary productions. As I often say, I am translating bad in particular, he says, “there had been a huge tive. It calls for the creation of a digital French into bad English, and doing it as faithfully as I can.” economy based around the black currant. That Aglaia Kallas—Journalism Professor Lou Ureneck’s grandmother and the subject of his current book project—with her archive for preserving everything from And as for the maxim that “a man’s house is his castle”? The earliest ref- crashed in the late 19th century, and it led to children (l–r), Helen, Constantine, John, and Thomas, in Newark, New Jersey, circa 1930. peer-reviewed articles to data sets to foreclosures and civil unrest. That’s largely what erence Seipp can find dates to 1499—but with a series of cases dating from the dissertations, and it encourages faculty drove the emigration.” mid 1300s about to be indexed, he remains on the lookout. R to negotiate to retain their copyright Ureneck’s grandmother came to America for scholarly, noncommercial use when by ship at the age of seven or eight, by herself, entering agreements with publishers. and joined relatives working in the textile mills in It also endorses publication in peer- Maine. At 15, she was entered into an arranged R reviewed open-access journals and marriage to a Greek man, and the couple moved promises equal consideration of such to Colorado, where there was a large Greek and publishing during tenure and promo- Balkan community that worked in the mines. “My tion reviews. mother was born in a mining tent in Delagua, “Open access asks faculty to think Colorado,” Ureneck says. about their research and about what the family moved east in the 1920s, and his happens to it after they generate it,” grandfather opened a restaurant, “as so many says Hudson, co-chair of the University immigrant families did,” says Ureneck, who has Council’s Committee on Scholarly been poring through archival materials in the Activities & Libraries. “Faculty are Newark library and visiting various places that engaged in the process, and we want were important gathering points for the Greek to support them. We’re all in this new community. ecosystem together.” His is a story of how families adapt in a new culture, he says, but it centers on “the

To view more online, visit: To view more online, visit:  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009 Law professor David Seipp’s open-access database of Year Books contains more than 22,000 records of cases dating from 1268 to 1535.

52 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 53 Research New Deans, New Visions BY Patrick Kennedy and Andrew Thurston

more grant proposals. Furthermore, the center is inspiring similar Sciences, on a grant “to support the recruitment and professional devel- ulty are already building these relationships and mostly I just need to Taking the Helm efforts across the country, including programs in Denver and Seattle. opment of math educators,” says Coleman. cheer them along.” “In medicine,” says Fiedler, “a lot of research and initiatives and Already, the School of Education and College of Arts & Sciences Moore believes this interdisciplinary work will challenge tradi- incubation for processes come out of medical schools—that’s where offer a joint master’s degree in advanced math study and teaching, with tional views of what study in certain theological fields should achieve, In the past year, new deans have arrived at three innovation often begins.” With NECIR, he continues, the College of support from NSF, to help alleviate a shortage of teachers with demon- and it will also engage more people more complexly with the theoretical, of Boston University’s schools and colleges— Communication will fill a parallel and increasingly crucial role. “We strated math proficiency at the elementary level. practical, and value-laden issues of a global society. Conflict transfor- can do for a community’s civic health what a medical school does for its mation, for instance, is no longer just about the “ethical the College of Communication, the School of physical health.” questions of war and peace,” she says, but about dealing Education, and the School of Theology. Here, the with issues “in immediate and practical ways, as well as deans articulate their visions for their school’s or The Science of Pedagogy theoretical, contextually nuanced, and long-term ways. “The accent on practices is refreshing to students,” The School of Education has a long tradition of blending research and “My aspiration is for the college’s distinctive brand of research. Moore continues. “If they’re studying early Christian life, practice, says Hardin Coleman, a school counselor and psychologist who for example, they recognize that the way people ate and was appointed as dean in July 2008. School of Education to be what they ate were related to what they believed and “We were the first school of education in the country to add a field known as a school of and valued.” component to the preparation of teachers,” he says. “We’re the first Since joining BU in 2008, she has noticed that stu- Building a Media Model school of education in the country to have a technology department.” for scientist-practitioners.” dents are helping to drive another two elements of her Tom Fiedler earned an engineering degree before he ever came to And the School’s Journal of Education is the oldest continuously pub- vision: intercultural and interreligious research. the College of Communication in 1970 to learn journalism. When he lished education journal in the country. This year, the journal is switch- Hardin Coleman “Whether we raise interreligious questions or not, returned to his alma mater 38 years later as dean, he noted that his engi- ing to a peer-reviewed format for the first time—a change that reflects a “Part of research is access to data,” Coleman says, and Project our students live in an interreligious world,” she says. “Most profess neer’s mindset had proved useful throughout his career as an investiga- renewed commitment to research and the generation of new knowledge Challenge benefitted from a ready supply, thanks to BU’s unique, Christianity, but they want to be able to do so in a way that is credible tive journalist and editor of the Miami Herald. that is useful to practice across the School of Education as a whole. 19-year partnership with the Chelsea Public Schools. (The University and respectful. They recognize, just as our faculty do, that you can’t pro- “Engineers are methodical,” Fiedler explained at the time. “When For years, says Coleman, an emphasis on teaching preparation managed the nearby Massachusetts city’s once-troubled schools from fess any religion in the 21st century without understanding and having you build a building, you want to make sure it’s going to stand up.” He was foremost in the minds of faculty. “The teaching mission has been 1989 until 2008, and maintains connections with the system.) “Clearly, respect for other religious traditions.” approached reporting the same way. “You find the information, you test central, and based on alumni and student surveys and employer com- an area where we’re very strong is our deep engagement with Chelsea the information. You build the story in many ways as That philosophy, coupled with a new Global Religion Initiative and our growing relationship with the Boston Public Schools.” you would build a bridge, piece by piece.” at BU to promote collaboration among experts of different faiths and Looking to the future, Coleman says, “My aspiration is for the Now, a year into his tenure as dean, Fiedler is still denominations, leads Moore to predict that study across religions “The tools that all media use are School of Education to be known as a school of and for scientist-practi- assembling complementary components, to craft not a might soon become “one of the major strengths of the University.” In tioners,” to fulfill research potential without altering its core teaching news story but a cohesive communication college. converging. A journalist today, her own school, that means practical theology, a long-time emphasis mission. He set the tone with an all-faculty retreat in at BU (cemented in 2005 with the founding of the Center for Practical “In five years, we want to be the buzz in this city, in the schools, the February 2009, when he told faculty in three depart- even one who focuses primarily Theology), will become less exclusively focused on Christian practice. state, and the world—that if you want to become a high quality scientist- ments—journalism; film & television; and mass com- So, says Moore, if researchers are delving into religious rituals con- on text, also has to know how to practitioner in the field of education who can integrate policy, theory, munication, advertising & public relations—that it was nected with death, they need to engage the practices and meanings of and practice, go to BU.” critical “that we think of ourselves as one College—with shoot and edit video, how to tell their own faith in dialogue with others. a diversity of strengths, but with all of those strengths a story visually.” “We are beginning to develop an approach to practical theology in coming together to add up to something greater.” Theologians Without Borders which religious practices of different traditions are studied in relation- In today’s media landscape, that concept matters Tom Fiedler If religion touches all dimensions of our lives, then so should the study ship to the beliefs, values, and practice frameworks of diverse religious communities. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians can learn much more than ever. “The values that distinguish the professions remain mentary, we do an exceptional job,” he says. “So the question becomes: of theology. Religious beliefs can influence our views on everything from from each other by examining and analyzing their differences and distinct, as they should, but the tools that all media use are converging,” How do you think of research in service of that mission?” politics and jobs to medical treatment and the environment, and School of similarities.” R Fiedler says. “A journalist today, even one who focuses primarily on text, Among those quick to respond to Coleman’s charge is Suzanne Theology faculty are ensuring their work has an equally wide reach. They also has to know how to shoot and edit video, how to tell a story visually.” Chapin, an associate professor of math education who has received six are exploring the role of faith in such diverse areas as This year, the College launched its biggest experiment in conver- grants totaling approximately $5.7 million from the National Science physics, ecology, and conflict transformation, allow- gence yet, with the creation of the New England Center for Investigative Foundation (NSF) to improve math education. Project Challenge, a pro- ing them to help probe the origins of the universe, Reporting (NECIR). Funded in part by a grant from the Knight Foundation, gram Chapin co-developed, stresses “productive classroom talk” about discern religion’s role in healing our planet, and “You can’t profess any religion in NECIR is the nation’s first university-based investigative reporting col- mathematics. Program guidelines help elementary and middle school restore veterans’ psychological health. laborative focused on local and regional issues. Veteran investigative teachers encourage discussion in the classroom about fractions, ratios, This broad-minded approach, says School of a way that is credible in the 21st journalist Joe Bergantino and other faculty are leading students in data integers, and proportions as a way to ensure that their students not only Theology Dean Mary Elizabeth Moore, is central to century without understanding and collection for in-depth stories that will appear on an array of platforms, do the math properly, but also develop a thorough understanding of her view of teaching and research. including web (Boston.com), radio (WBUR, BU’s National Public Radio how it works. Hundreds of students taking part in the experiment have “I have a vision to encourage interdisciplin- having respect for other religious station), and television (New England Cable News). scored significantly higher than their peers on state exams. ary, intercultural, and interreligious research,” traditions.” NECIR is also serving as a laboratory for outside investigative Recently, Chapin successfully collaborated with Glenn Stevens, says Moore. “I want to promote research that reporters, who are bringing story ideas that the center is turning into a professor of mathematics and statistics in the BU College of Arts & crosses BU’s schools and colleges. A lot of our fac- Mary Elizabeth Moore

54 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 55 Research Performing Arts BY Sheryl Flatow

modern dance. Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, who were of the generation of dancers that followed Duncan, also trained in Delsartism.” Everything So did actors working for the American director D. W. Griffith and the Russian director Lev Kuleshov. “It makes sense,” says Preston, “because gesture is the language of silent film.” Kuleshov introduced the montage, which uses editing to change the viewer’s interpretation of “All history is modernPreserved history,” writes Wallace images. And Griffith made extensive use of the close-up, an innovation of silent film. “The close-up was the first time that we got that close to Stevens in his collection of aphorisms, Adagia. the face of a complete stranger, an actor. So film theorists have talked The stories we invent and the stories we about the close-up technique as a way of digging into subjectivity. The inherit—through forms ranging from stage close-up was also a way to see the minute features of a gesture, the way a hand is turned or tipped. Again, it’s about presenting subjectivity, and and screen to sheet music and the printed presenting an individual in a different way.” No Peace = No Sex See photos from the BU premiere of Lizzie Stranton, Lydia word—play a vital role in understanding who Preston hopes that her book will change the way that modernism  Diamond’s adaptation of Lysistrata, at www.bu.edu/cfa/esprit. we are as individuals and members of a soci- is viewed as a movement. “Dance has long been marginalized,” she says. “But modern artists saw dance as a new form that would reinvigorate all ety. Faculty in the arts and letters at BU are of the other art forms. So putting dance at the center of modernism is “I don’t write with a political agenda,” she says. “But my plays are examining the rich history of performance in one of my goals, and showing how, if you consider dance as a crucial part always political. You can’t write about the personal stories of black people of aesthetic modernism, other art forms look different.” in America without having some of it be political. But I’m just telling sto- plays, music, film, and dance to illuminate the ries and exploring things that fascinate and confuse and entertain me.” past and inform the present. Dramatic License Two other recent works by Diamond delve into the inevitable over- lap between the personal and the political. Voyeurs de Venus moves back When Lydia R. Diamond’s play Stick Fly was running in Los Angeles ear- and forth between the early 19th century and the present day to exam- lier this year, she received an extraordinary letter of appreciation from a ine the short, heartbreaking life of Saartjie Baartman, a South African stranger. It read, in part, “You turn the face of history with such magical woman who became a sideshow attraction in London and Paris, where Going Solo and remarkable force.” she was known as the Hottentot Venus. Harriet Jacobs, which is being The letter went on to acknowledge that the play—a family dram- staged by Underground Railway Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Solo performances played a key role in reshaping modern ideas about edy that explores issues of race and class inside and outside the black during the 2009–2010 season, is based on events from Jacobs’s narra- feminism, identity, and gendered subjectivity, claims Carrie J. Preston, community—was a liberating experience. “So often African Americans tive Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. an assistant professor of English whose forthcoming book, Solo are presented only in a historical context onstage,” says Diamond, an “Playwrights, to the despair of historians, are sometimes a little Performance: Gender, Genre, Modernism, centers on modern dancer assistant professor of playwriting and theatre arts. “When I spoke about loosey-goosey with history,” says Diamond, whose great-grandfather Isadora Duncan and the way she “redefined femininity for her period, writing in the past, I would talk about trying to tell contemporary stories was a slave. “In writing about Harriet Jacobs, it was important to keep redefined the relationship between the body and the soul.” of blacks who interact in a world that looks like the world I live in.” Stick the facts accurate. But the accounting of the story, the words I put into Throughout history, body and soul had been considered separate Fly, which will be performed in Boston during the 2009–2010 season by her mouth, are all historical fiction.” entities, and women’s bodies were often considered profane. Duncan the Huntington Theatre Company, where Diamond is a playwriting fel- Harriet Jacobs was commissioned by Chicago’s Steppenwolf sought to make the body sacred. “Through her performances, she was low, is such a piece. Theater for its Young Adults program, and premiered there in 2008. saying that dance is the movement of a soul,” says Preston. In play after play, Diamond has emerged as a political writer. Last One of the great joys for Diamond was knowing she had both affected She traces the roots of solo performance to the monodrama, created year, Boston University presented the premiere of Lizzie Stranton, a and educated teenaged audiences. “Nothing makes you feel like a good in the 18th century by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and statue posing, which re-imagining of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, in which women go on a sex writer more than getting them,” she says. “And I got them. They were became popular in the 19th century. In monodramas, a woman would strike in order to stop a war. Set in 2035, the protagonist is an African exposed to slavery in a way that they hadn’t been in school. These kids recite poetic lines, and then those lines would be gestured to music. In American first lady, “not necessarily Michelle.” were so touched and blown away. It was very affirming.” statue posing, a person, usually a woman, would imitate a famous statue. French acting teacher François Delsarte developed these statue Dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan in statue pose, a system of poses into a new acting theory that connected emotion with particular expression that she would incorpo- poses of the body. Delsartism became an international phenomenon rate into her work, paving the way and was later co-opted by other forms. “Those 19th-century solo perfor- for modern dance. mances were passed into modernism and changed,” says Preston. “The “I don’t write with a political agenda. But my statue pose became a part of modern dance choreography, and part of plays are always political. I’m just telling the acting method for silent film.” Among those who trained in Delsarte’s method was Duncan—a fact stories and exploring things that fascinate that calls into question the generally accepted theory that modern dance originated as a rejection of ballet, says Preston. “Duncan used Delsarte’s and confuse and entertain me.” teachings as a way of redefining dance. And that led to the creation of Carrie J. Preston Lydia R. Diamond

56 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 57 Research Performing Arts Research Snapshot BY Tricia Brick

A Vintage Year for Jazz Miles Davis was on a break between sets at Birdland in 1959, Multilingual Miracles eight days after the release of his landmark album Kind of Blue, when a white New York City policeman approached him and Aria Greca told him to move along. Davis pointed to his name on the mar- In Swathi Kiran’s Aphasia Research Laboratory certain networks of information,” she says. “But quee outside the club and said, “I’m playing here.” The officer last summer, ten people learned to speak again— it doesn’t make sense to treat them like blank “I think it started with the chest full of music that was in my house when didn’t care. Davis held his ground—and was clubbed repeatedly in two languages. A speech pathology professor, slates, to teach them as though they’re children I was growing up,” says Penelope Bitzas, a mezzo-soprano and associ- on the head. Bruised and bleeding, he was taken to a station Kiran is developing treatment programs for bilin- learning a new language. At a fundamental level, ate professor of voice and music who recently recorded a selection of house and charged with resisting arrest. “Until gual patients who have aphasia caused by stroke. the goal is not to reteach but to facilitate reorga- then, Davis felt that he had more or less 20th-century Greek art songs for her first solo album. At the age of 15, Aphasia is the loss of language—an impaired nization and reaccess.” escaped the barriers of black culture,” Bitzas visited Greece for the first time and bought the sheet music of ability to understand or produce words or sen- kiran is now extending her research to says Jeremy Yudkin, associate pro- pumpkin calabaza a song by Manolis Kalomiris, the father of Greek art music and one of tences. Among the approximately 20 percent of aphasic patients who were English-Spanish fessor of music. “He was famous, stroke victims afflicted with aphasia, some have bilingual before their strokes. In the United the country’s most important composers. She has been amassing Greek he wore fancy clothes, drove an difficulty in reading or writing, others in finding States, bilingual aphasia patients are frequently music ever since. expensive car, and had a beauti- the words to identify objects or ideas, and still treated in English, regardless of their pre-stroke Swathi Kiran This collection became the springboard for her album, which she ful house. But this exemplifies others in putting sentences together. A few lose fluency, simply because the available clinicians plans to release later this year. “I chose a big cross-section of music,” the terrible tensions in our soci- the ability to understand language entirely. tend to speak English. Kiran’s work seeks to stand which parts of the brain they are using as she says, “because it was important to show the diversity ety, and also why Miles Davis though no single agreed-upon treatment determine if this is the best way to help these they relearn language. of the repertoire.” Many Greek art songs were influ- became a very angry man.” program currently exists for aphasia, therapy patients relearn language. to extend the reach of her research, Kiran enced by European lieder and French melodies, and don’t That incident is for the disorder has traditionally paralleled the Her experiences with a stroke patient is also working with a colleague at the University sound particularly Greek. “That changed when Kalomiris recounted in Yudkin’s forthcom- progression of normal language learning: patients named Ricardo in 2002 suggest that it may not of Texas at Austin to develop a computer model ing book on jazz in the 1950s, started a national school of Greek music, and composers are retaught language beginning with simple be. Kiran began providing therapy in English, that simulates a bilingual person learning two which pays particular attention began to draw more on folk songs, traditional tunes, and words and concepts and progressing through lev- Ricardo’s stronger language, but found that his languages at differing levels of proficiency. The to the seminal year 1959 while also Greek themes.” els of increasing complexity. But Kiran has found progress was slow and he failed to improve in model can then be given a simulated aphasia- offering a compelling overview of the that aphasic patients progress most efficiently Spanish, a language he had spoken fluently as a Very few of the songs, which offer a window into causing stroke, allowing the researchers to test social, political, cultural, and racial envi- when their course of treatment begins with more child, at all. “When we realized he wasn’t improv- various therapeutic methods to see which pro- 20th-century Greek life, have been recorded before. ronment of the decade. “I wanted to create a complex concepts. ing in Spanish, we switched to providing therapy vide the greatest improvement in both languages. “Except for about three songs, all the music was new to rich tapestry of the era, and create a feel for the times in reteaching an aphasic patient the words in Spanish instead of English,” Kiran recalls. “And “To make a conclusive study of these theo- me,” says Bitzas, who is accompanied on the album by in which this music was being made,” he says. for various foods, for example, rather than begin we found that as he improved in Spanish, he also ries, I’d need to study 1,500 aphasic patients,” Shiela Kibbe, assistant professor and chair of the collab- Yudkin says that change—always a constant in jazz— Penelope Bitzas with the simplest, or most typical, examples— improved in English—in fact, he improved more says Kiran. “But with a model, I can do this theo- orative piano department. “They express the sentiments began to occur with unprecedented speed in the middle of the carrot, cucumber—Kiran introduces the words than he had during the English treatment.” retically. Then, as I work with real patients, I can of the Greek people, and say something about their lives, their culture, 20th century. “If you look back at the history of jazz, a new for less commonly used items within the cat- the parallel to Kiran’s previous semantic- compare their outcomes with the model’s out- and frequently their politics.” style emerges roughly every ten years,” he says. “But in the egory, such as parsley and pumpkin. Patients complexity research was clear: The more dif- come, to see how effective a predictor the model ’50s, change happened more quickly. Miles Davis, the most Bitzas’s mission to draw attention to Greek music in this country is taught in this way improve not only in identifying ficult work, learning in the weaker language, is,” and to refine or recalibrate it as needed. influential figure in jazz, was the prime mover. The beginning beginning to make inroads. When she performed Nikolaos Mantzaros’s the foods whose names they relearn, but also proved to facilitate relearning in the stronger that interplay between theory and clini- of the decade was the initiation of the movement called ‘cool,’ “Aria Greca” at a concert at BU in January, she says, “I think it was the in naming the more familiar ones that are not language. cal practice provides an apt parallel to Kiran’s in which jazz became more mellow. Around 1954 he started a taught, the carrots and cucumbers. kiran will continue her work with Spanish– first time that anyone on this side of the ocean had heard that aria.” This research. She uses theoretical knowledge of how style called hard bop, which is, in fact, catchy, funky, and very starting with more difficult tasks may seem English bilingual patients to find out whether language is organized in the brain to create more fall she gives another recital at the University of Michigan. “And we’re blues oriented.” counterintuitive, but Kiran explains that aphasic Ricardo’s experience is reproducible across a effective strategies for providing therapy to her generating pockets of interest in large universities that have Hellenic The defining moment came in 1959, with the release of four patients—who once were fluent in the language broader population. In addition to a systematic aphasic patients. Her clinical research, in turn, studies programs,” says Bitzas, laying the foundation for a national net- LPs that changed jazz profoundly. In addition to Davis’s Kind or languages they are being taught—are in a clinical study in which she and her colleagues has the potential to offer new insight into neuro- work of composers and performers interested in Greek music. “That’s of Blue—which introduced modal jazz and went on to become very different situation from people learning a will provide therapy in each patient’s weaker plasticity—the brain’s process of restructuring what I hoped would happen. I want this music to be better known.” R “the most famous album in the history of jazz”—there was John language for the first time. language, she plans to use fMRI (functional itself in learning or in response to injury—as well Coltrane’s Giant Steps, an “extraordinarily virtuosic” record that “Following the stroke, these individuals have Magnetic Resonance Imaging) neuroimaging as the very nature of how the human brain pro- “signaled the end of bebop”; Dave Brubeck’s Time Out, which lost access to certain aspects of their brain—to of her patients as they recover to better under- cesses language. R features irregular and unusual meters and includes the very Newly recorded songs from Penelope Bitzas’s famous “Take Five”; and Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to personal collection of Come, which pioneered Free Jazz. “Coleman is one of the great sheet music are offering revolutionaries in jazz,” says Yudkin. “His notion was that you American audiences a can play whatever you want, as long as you are listening very window into 20th-century closely to your fellow musicians.” Greek life and culture. As the Birdland incident underscores, race and music Axial fMRI images show patterns of neural activation in two are inextricably bound in the story of jazz. “You can’t talk patients with bilingual aphasia, both of whom were more proficient in English than in Spanish prior to a left-hemisphere stroke. Areas about jazz without talking about race,” says Yudkin. “There is activated during word processing in Spanish and English are shown always a racial component to jazz, which is absolutely unavoid- in blue and red, respectively; horizontal lines at right indicate the able. But the most important thing has always been the real sections of brain illustrated. Americanness of the music.” R

To view more online, visit: To view more online, visit:  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009

58 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 59 Research Snapshot BY Sheryl Flatow

Quantifying Conflict Award-Winning Faculty

When economist M. Daniele Paserman was (A colleague is doing a similar study on the the news is not Rui Albuquerque (Finance & Economics) Sarah Campbell (Writing Program) received a Simon Estes (Music) was named Vocal living in Israel, a bomb went off at the university impact of violence on Israelis.) all reassuring. The received the European Corporate Governance Fulbright scholarship. Educator of the Year by the Opera Company of where he was teaching. The terrorist attack the research, which covers the period from paper also consid- Institute’s Standard Life Investments Finance Brooklyn. occurred about a week after a targeted kill- September 2000 to February 2007, is based ers what happens Prize and was also awarded the American Antonio Castro-Neto (Physics) was offered ing in Gaza of a Hamas leader, who died with on data from Birzeit University, located near to a generation that Finance Association’s Smith Breeden Prize. a Visiting Professorship at the University of Mark Ferriero (General Dentistry) received his whole family. “That raised the question of Ramallah. “These are large-scale surveys, in comes of age in a California at Berkeley’s Miller Institute. the Academy of General Dentistry’s Lifelong whether it was a wise thing that Israel did,” says which about 1,000 people were interviewed,” constant state of Hatice Altug (Electrical & Computer Learning and Service Recognition Award. Francesco Cerrina (Electrical & Computer Paserman, now an associate professor of eco- says Paserman, “and we analyze the micro data. violence and turmoil. Engineering) received the Massachusetts Life Engineering) was elected a Fellow of the Juliet Floyd (Philosophy) was awarded fellow- nomics at Boston University. “Wasn’t it inviting We have information about age, about where “We essentially Sciences Center’s New Investigator Award. American Association for the Advancement of ships at the American Academy in Berlin and the this sort of reaction?” they live, and we merge that information with compared cohorts Judith Austin (Mass Communications, Science. Lichtenberg-Kolleg. as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict spins data collected from other sources, like the num- who had their for- Advertising & Public Relations) received the out in an endless loop, much has been written ber of fatalities and the economic conditions in mative adolescent Society of Marketing and Communication Claudio Chamon (Physics) was elected a Fellow James Galagan (Biomedical Engineering) about the effects of violence on both sides. But each district. We use statistical analysis to get M. Daniele Paserman years at the time of Professionals’ MarCom Award. of the American Physical Society. received a New Faculty Award from the what about its impact on public opinion? Does answers to our questions.” the first Intifada, to Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. each act of hostility and bloodshed further the answers confirm some expecta- cohorts who had their formative years during the Richard Averitt (Physics) received the Defense Suzanne Chapin (Curriculum & Teaching) radicalize the citizenry? Or does the cycle of tions and defy others. “We find that in the time of the Oslo peace process,” he says. Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Young won a Curriculum Award from the National Lisa Ganley-Leal (Medicine) was elected violence generate moderation, a desire by a short run, within the first month of an attack as expected, those who grew up during Faculty Award. Association for Gifted Children. president of the New England Association of weary public for negotiation? against Palestinians, there is a shift of opinion the Intifada tend to have more radical positions. Parasitologists, and also received a Biosciences Paserman wanted answers. The university toward supporting more radical factions such as “Those conditions sow seeds of hatred for the next Andrew Bacevich (International Relations) Richard Clapp (Environmental Health) received Research Grant from Becton, Dickinson and bombing piqued his curiousity about the effect Hamas,” says Paserman. “There’s more support generation,” says Paserman. “That seems to be received the Boston Public Library’s 2009 several awards from the Silicon Valley Toxics Company. of violence on Palestinian public opinion in par- for suicide bombers, more support for military the long-term effect of violence. This is especially Literary Lights Award. Coalition, including the SVTC Helen Clark ticular, and led to a paper entitled “The Struggle action against Israelis, less support for concilia- true for boys, who are more likely to have some Award. Bennett Goldberg (Physics) was elected a for Palestinian Hearts and Minds: Violence tory positions and negotiations.” confrontations with Israeli soldiers.” John Baillieul (Mechanical Engineering) was Fellow of the American Physical Society. and Public Opinion in the Second Intifada.” But much to Paserman’s surprise, the swing Paserman hopes the study can make a dif- elected a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and James Collins (Biomedical Engineering) received The study—co-authored with David Jaeger, an toward more extremist positions quickly subsides. ference. “I don’t think Benjamin Netanyahu is Applied Mathematics. Drexel University’s inaugural Anthony J. Drexel Judith Gonyea (Social Work) was invited to par- economist at the City University of New York— “Within two months, three at the most, that shift going to call me up and ask to hire me as a con- Exceptional Achievement Award. ticipate in the National Governors Association empirically examines how violent conflict affects fades completely,” he says. “I thought we would sultant,” he says, smiling. “But what the paper Gary Balady (Medicine) received a Policy Academy’s Civic Engagement of Older William DeJong (Social & Behavioral Sciences) the short-term and long-term radicalization of find more of a short-term effect. So that leads us does is contribute to the body of evidence that Distinguished Achievement Award from the Adults Initiative in Massachusetts. received an Outstanding Contribution to the the Palestinian population. Paserman believes to conclude that Palestinian fatalities do not cause will help shape the way that people think about American Heart Association’s Council on Field Award from the Network Addressing Mark Grinstaff (Chemistry) received the it to be the first quantitative study of its kind. a radicalization of Palestinian public opinion.” the conflict.” R Clinical Cardiology. Collegiate Alcohol and Other Drug Issues. Center for Integration of Medicine & Innovative Emily Barman (Sociology) was elected to Technology’s Edward M. Kennedy Award for the board of the Association for Research on Victor Dietz (Orthodontics) received the Healthcare Innovation for his work with CIMIT’s The effect of Palestinian fatalities on support for negotiations Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. Massachusetts Association of Orthodontists’ Cancer Advanced-Technology Team. Average and predicted support in response to 20 Palestinian fatalities Frederick Moynihan Award. Anthony Barrand (Anthropology) received a Charles Griswold (Philosophy) was awarded a Lifetime Contribution Award from the Country Mary Jane Doherty (Film & Television) received Senior Fellowship from the American Council of a Hemphill Foundation Award for her documen- 66 Dance and Song Society. Learned Societies. Predicted tary Los Niños de la Danza Cubana. Average Calin Belta (Mechanical Engineering) received Stephen Grossberg (Mathematics) was named a Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Marina Donahue (Medicine) received an award an Inaugural Fellow of the American Education 64 Office of Scientific Research. for Excellence in Nursing Practice from the Theta Research Association. Alpha Chapter of the Sigma Nursing Honor Emelia Benjamin (Cardiology) was invited to Society. Patricia Hanrahan (Medicine) was

62 join the Association of University Cardiologists. named Preceptor of the Year 2008 by the

Percent Michael El-Batanouny and James Stone Massachusetts Nurse Practitioner Association. Susan Berger (Occupational Therapy & (Physics) were appointed Jefferson Science Rehabilitation Counseling) was named a Fellows by the U.S. Department of State. Robert Hefner (Anthropology) was elected 60 Fellow of the American Occupational Therapy president of the Association for Asian Studies. Association. Terry Ellis (Physical Therapy & Athletic Training) received the Clinical Excellence in Janelle Heineke (Operations & Technology

58 Thomas Bifano (Mechanical Engineering) Education Award and the Clinical Research Management) received an Instructional 0 4 8 12 was awarded the Bepi Colombo Prize by the Award from the Neurology Section of the Innovation Award from the Decision Sciences Weeks after Palestinian fatalities Italian Space Agency, Università degli Studi di American Physical Therapy Association. Institute and was also named a DSI Fellow. To view more online, visit: Padova, and the Padova Province Economics  www.bu.edu/research/magazine/2009 Department.

60 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 61 Award-Winning Faculty

Andrew Henderson (Medicine, Microbiology) Lalita Khaodhiar (Medicine) received a Visiting Lisa Najavits (Psychiatry) received the Betty Amy Rosen (Health Policy & Management) H. Eugene Stanley (Physics) received an honor- David Weil (Finance & Economics) was named has received an Award for Outstanding Research Professor Award from the Thai American Ford Award for Research on Addictions from the was named a recipient of the Rx for Excellence ary doctorate from the University of Messina in a Fulbright Specialist by the Council for the Achievement from Nature Publishing Group. Physicians Foundation. Association for Medical Education and Research Award by the Massachusetts Medical Law Report. Italy. International Exchange of Scholars. in Substance Abuse. Martin Herbordt (Electrical & Computer Linda Killian (Journalism) was appointed Ronald Roy (Mechanical Engineering) was Alan Strahler (Geography & Environment) won Marc Weinberg (Medicine) received a Engineering), Suresh Kalathur (Computer a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson John Neale (Operations & Technology awarded the University of Maine’s Francis the SAIC Estes Memorial Teaching Award from Mentorship Award from Roger Williams Medical Science), and Tanya Zlateva (Computer International Center for Scholars. Management) was awarded the 2008 Daniel Crowe Medal. He was also elected to the the American Society for Photogrammetry and Center and served as Vice Chairman for the Science) received IBM Faculty Awards. H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Technical Council of the Acoustical Society Remote Sensing. Rhode Island Special Legislative Commission. Mark Klempner (Medicine, Microbiology) was Research Practice. of America (ASA) and named Chair of ASA’s Linda Heywood and John Thornton (African invited to serve as a Visiting Professor and to Technical Committee on Physical Acoustics. Fernando Suarez (Strategy & Innovation) Robert Wexelblatt (Humanities) received the American Studies) received the African Studies deliver the 49th Annual Bailey Ashford Lecture Sigrun Olafsdottir (Sociology) received the was elected Program Chair of the Academy Next Generation Indie Book Awards’ Grand Prize Association’s Melville J. Herskovits Award for at the University of Puerto Rico. American Sociological Association’s Award for Sayon Roy (Medicine, Ophthalmology) received of Management’s Technology and Innovation in Fiction for his novel, Zublinka Among Women. their book, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles and Best Dissertation in Mental Health. an Innovation Award from the Juvenile Diabetes Management Division. the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660. Parker Frank Korom (Religion) received a Fellowship Research Foundation. Jenny White (Anthropology) held a Fulbright- Shipton (Anthropology) was also awarded a Award from the American Institute for Sri Uday Pal (Manfacturing Engineering) received Rathan Subramaniam (Radiology) won the Hays Senior Research Fellowship and was Herskovits Award for his book, The Nature of Lankan Studies. the Materials Processing and Manufacturing Joan Salge Blake (Health Sciences) was GE-Radiology Research Academic Fellowship elected Vice President for North America in the Entrustment. Division Education Resource Award from the named the 2009 Outstanding Dietitian by the from the Association of University Radiologists. International Association of Crime Writers. R. Mark Laursen (Physical Therapy & Athletic Minerals, Metals & Materials Society. Massachusetts Dietetic Association. C. Robert Horsburgh (Medicine, Biostatistics) Training) received an Athletic Trainer Service Lisa Sullivan (Biostatistics) received the Sean P. Willems (Operations & Technology was elected co-chair of the Tuberculosis Award from the National Athletic Trainers’ Steven Perlman (Pediatric Dentistry) received Vivien Schmidt (International Relations) Association of Schools of Public Health’s ASPH/ Management) received the Daniel H. Wagner Epidemiologic Studies Consortium. Association. an Honorary Doctorate from the Arizona School received an honorary doctorate from the Free Pfizer Award for Teaching Excellence. Prize for Excellence in Operations Research of Dentistry and Oral Health, as well as the University of Brussels. Practice. Prakash Ishwar (Electrical & Computer Jung Wan Lee (Administrative Sciences) George Cushing Award from the Chicago Dental Alexander Taubin (Electrical & Computer Engineering) was elected a member of the IEEE received a Distinguished Research Award at the Society. Joshua Semeter (Electrical & Computer Engineering) received the Best Paper Award for Mark Williams (Finance & Economics) was Image, Video, and Multidimensional Signal 2008 Allied Academies’ Spring International Engineering) received a Commendation for “Power Balanced Gates Insensitive to Routing awarded the Beckwith Prize for Excellence in Processing Technical Committee. Conference. Rodney Petersen and Thomas Porter Excellence in Technical Communication from Capacitance Mismatch” in The 11th Design, Teaching. (Theology) received an award from the Luce Laser Focus World. Automation and Test in Europe. Alan Jette (Health & Disability Research Maurice Lee (English) was awarded a Ryskamp Foundation for their work on the Religion and Joyce Wong (Biomedical Engineering) was Institute) received the Darrel J. Mase Leadership Research Fellowship by the American Council of Conflict Resolution Program. Andrew Shenton (Theology) received the Max Malvin Teich (Electrical & Computer elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Award from the University of Florida’s College of Learned Societies. B. Miller Book Prize from the American Guild of Engineering) was named an OSA Traveling Medical and Biological Engineering. Public Health and Health Professions. Robert Pinsky (Creative Writing) was awarded Organists for Olivier Messiaen’s System of Signs. Lecturer by the Optical Society of America as Lena Lundgren (Social Welfare Policy) was the 2008 Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry well as an IEEE/EMBS Distinguished Lecturer. Donald Wright (Mass Communications, Peggy Johnson (Clinical Psychiatry) received an invited to serve on the Substance Abuse and Prize for his collection of poems Gulf Music. Sunny H. Shin (Social Work) received the Advertising & Public Relations) received a chair- Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Mental Health Services Administration’s Minority Scholar Award from the Society for M. Selim Ünlü (Electrical & Computer man’s citation from the chairman and CEO of the Alliance on Mental Illness. Advisory Expert Panel on HIV & substance Anatoli Polkovnikov (Physics) was named a Prevention Research. Engineering) received the TÜBÏTAK Special Public Relations Society of America. abuse treatment. 2009 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. Award from the Scientific and Technological Judith Jones (General Dentistry) received the Barbara Shinn-Cunningham (Cognitive & Neural Research Council of Turkey. Peter Yeager (Sociology) was elected vice presi- American College of Dentists’ William J. Gies Michael Macko (Medicine) received the 2008 John Porco (Chemistry) received the American Systems) received a National Security Science dent and president-elect of the White Collar Award for Innovation as an Educator. Governor’s Award from the Rhode Island chap- Chemical Society’s Cope Scholar Award. and Engineering Faculty Fellowship from the Thomas Van Dyke (Periodontology, Oral Crime Research Consortium. ter of the American College of Physicians. Department of Defense. She was also named Biology) received both the William J. Gies W. Clem Karl (Electrical & Computer Stephen Prothero (Religion) was invited to a lifetime Associate Member of the National Award and a Special Citation from the American Michael Zank (Religion) received the Journal for Engineering) was elected Vice-Chair of the Carl McManama (Dentistry) was named the deliver the William Belden Noble Lectures at Research Council of the National Academies of Academy of Periodontology. the Study of Religions and Ideologies Prize. IEEE Biomedical Image and Signal Processing 2009 Clinician of the Year by the Massachusetts Harvard University’s Memorial Church. Science. Technical Committee. Dental Society. N. Venkatraman (Information Systems) Bin Zhang (Clinical Epidemiology Research & Rahul Ray (Medicine) received an award from William Skocpol (Physics) was named an was ranked 22nd in a list of the Journal of Training Unit) received a Health Professional Steven Katz (Religion) delivered the Sackler Brenda Gael McSweeney (Women’s Studies) the National Cancer Institute to investigate a Outstanding Referee by APS Journals for his Management’s 150 most influential management New Investigator Award from the American Lectures at the Mortimer and Raymond Sackler was awarded the Order of Merit First Class from novel vitamin D analog for kidney cancer. contributions to Physical Review and Physical scholars of the past quarter century. College of Rheumatology Research and Institute of Advanced Studies at Tel-Aviv the Federal Republic of Germany. Review Letters. Education Foundation. University. Justin Ren (Operations & Technology Robert Wagenaar (Rehabilitation Sciences) Allen Michel and Jacob Oded (Finance & Management) received a Manufacturing & Kevin Smith (Physics) was appointed as a served as a Dozor Visiting Scholar in the Faculty Xin Zhang (Mechanical Engineering) received Sam Kauffmann (Film & Television) received Economics) received the Financial Analysts Service Operations Management Meritorious Government Science Advisor to the Republic of of Health Sciences at Ben-Gurion University of Gift Fund Awards from Sanyo and Schlumberger the Petit Prose Award from the Short Short Story Journal’s Graham and Dodd Scroll Award. Service Award. Ireland. the Negev. for Excellence and Leadership in Research. Film Festival for his film Massacre at Murambi, which was also an official selection at the Todd Murray (Mechanical Engineering) was Dana Robert’s (Theology) Converting Temple F. Smith (Biomedical Engineering) Rosanna Warren (English, Romance Languages) Douglas Zook (Curriculum & Teaching) received Slamdance and the San Francisco Independent awarded the Junior Prize for Research from the Colonialism: Visions and Realities in Mission History delivered the Stanislaw Ulam lecture at the 12th was awarded a Cullman Center Fellowship at the a Fulbright Award. Film Festival. International Photoacoustic and Photothermal was named one of the top 15 books on mission Annual International Conference on Research in New York Public Library and appointed secretary Association. in 2008 by the International Bulletin of Missionary Computational Molecular Biology. of the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Research.

62 Research at Boston University 2009 www.bu.edu/ research 63 Boston University at a Glance

Robert A. Brown, President Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Students Research at Boston University is published annually by the Office of the Provost to David K. Campbell, University Provost science & Technology highlight research, scholarship, and creative activity in and across disciplines at Boston University, which received more than $336 million in external funding in Karen H. Antman, Provost, Medical Campus Center of Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease 16,685 undergraduate; 13,123 graduate; 2,927 non-degree FY2008. Opinions expressed do not represent the official view of Boston University. Communication Research Center Use of trade names implies no endorsement by Boston University. For permission to Research Centers and Institutes Danielsen Institute Faculty and Staff reprint text from Research at Boston University, contact the Office of the Provost at Editorial Institute 617-353-2230, [email protected], or One Silber Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02215. 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64 Research at Boston University 2009