RESEARCH AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY 2012 CONNECTIONS KYLE ALLISON TEAMING UP WITH SUGAR MITCHELL ZUCKOFF TO BATTLE BACTERIA. SEEKING OUT TRUE STORIES THAT ARE BETTER THAN FICTION. MERAV OPHER TRACKING VOYAGER AND RETHINKING THE SHAPE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM. TAPPING INTO OUR INNOVATORS MEET SOMe of BU’s OUTSTANDING RESEARCHERS. DARRELL KOTTON CONQUERING LUNG CANCER ONE STEM CELL AT A TIME. JIM COLLINS CULTIVATING BREAKTHROUGHS IN SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY. CONNECTIONS THE RESEARCH MAGAZINE OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY Q & A WITH THE VICE PRESIDENT ^ AND ASSOCIATE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH Contents 2012 partnerships highlight our strengths and allow ties, is a testament to the quality of our faculty us to reach beyond what we could accomplish and students, to BU’s rapid ascent as one of on our own. the major urban research universities, and to President Brown’s extraordinary leadership. You have changed the format of some Membership in the AAU is not only enhancing of the stories in the current Research at the visibility and reputation of our institution Boston University. Why? but it allows us to participate in high-level AER: An important focus of our office is conversations on all aspects of research and strengthening the “connections” across our education in American universities and gives us research community and bringing the out- an important voice in shaping federal policies standing research and scholarly work of this and practices that will help determine the future institution from our classrooms and laborato- of higher education. ries to the public at large. We often approach The MGHPCC, meanwhile, is a 10 MW 8 teaching in a linear way, building on a hier- computational facility built through a ground- archy of concepts, each of which might have breaking collaboration between BU, Harvard, taken decades to establish. In the same way, MIT, Northeastern, UMass, the Common- previous issues of Research at BU have sought wealth, and two industrial partners: Cisco and to highlight the scholarly work of our talented EMC. The MGHPCC represents a state-of-the- faculty and students by concentrating on the art “green” computational facility indispensable exciting results and the implications of their in the increasingly data-rich environment that research. But acquiring knowledge through is reshaping the way we communicate and learning or research is as much about the innovate across academia and all other sec- final result—understanding an idea explained tors of society. Beyond partnering to build this in a scholarly or research publication—as it extraordinary facility, the university consortium is about the complex process of discovery: a has also been successfully collaborating on Q: How has the position of Vice President roller coaster full of false starts, dead ends, research and other infrastructure projects, and Associate Provost for Research evolved and “aha” moments of euphoria. dispelling the perception that the Boston area over the last five years? I believe that giving students and the public is missing the “collaboration gene.” Without a AER: As the first to serve in this position a window into the excitement and impor- doubt, these collaborations will raise the profile 20 24 14 at BU, I have spent much of the last five tance of research and scholarship is about of each of our institutions and will enhance the years assessing the extraordinary research documenting and exploiting the tortuous but reputation of the Commonwealth as one of the capabilities of this institution, identifying the exhilarating journey of discovery, not merely world’s preeminent innovation hubs. challenges we face, and shaping this office about the destination of this journey. Provid- DIALOGUES DEPARTMENTS around four key responsibilities: promot- ing a vivid account of the research process on What is next for Boston University as a ing research and scholarship at the highest a printed page of Research at BU is a demand- major research university? 8 Adventures in History 2 Paper Trails 34 Pioneering Global Health level to increase our competitiveness for all ing task. In this issue, we decided to replace AER: Like our peers, we are working to man- Mitchell Zuckoff converses about his WWII The Whole Score and Nothing The Challenge of Childhood sources of funding; implementing policies some of our traditional, linear storytelling age increasing pressures on research funding plane crash survival tale, Lost in Shangri-La. but the Score Pneumonia that support research and ensure compli- with conversations with researchers in an due to the uncertainties in the federal budget. Body of Poems Education and Service in Ecuador ance with federal regulations; overseeing the interview format—a vehicle we feel more We must turn these challenges into oppor- 14 Reshaping the Solar System The Other Side of the Story Unraveling the Mysteries of administrative units supporting all our schol- compellingly chronicles the actual research tunities: for example, by becoming more Merav Opher discusses space physics, the edge a Public Health Emergency arly activities; and representing our research process and its endpoint. I hope you will find aggressive and strategic in applying for grants of the universe, and women in science. 4 Considering Community A Toolkit for Success enterprise outside the University. this experiment worthwhile and fun to read. and contracts, by exploring new funding Market Research Leading the Way Boston University’s research enterprise— mechanisms, and by forging strategic part- 20 Opening the Doors to Smart Parking Setting the Stage for like that of so many other institutions—is What have been, in your opinion, BU’s nerships inside and outside the institution. I Open Source Medicine evolving in response to the innovative environ- proudest research accomplishments over am convinced that with vision and discipline Coming Home Public Health Darrell Kotton talks about pulmonary medicine, ment in which we work and to the increasing the last five years? we will continue BU’s upward trajectory stem cells, and building a lab to conduct research Turning Green into Green standards and changing needs and priorities AER: There is a great deal of impactful, among major research universities. 38 Snapshots his own way. of the institution. Important forces in this important work performed at BU each day in Be sure that, as we speak, there are students 7 Research Recognized 42 Award-Winning Faculty evolution are the shifting pressures on many areas of scholarship. Two major suc- and members of our faculty and collaborators 24 Persistent Beginnings research funding and the uncertainties in the cesses that perhaps speak more broadly to in labs, studios, and classrooms contemplating 30 Ground-Truthing federal budget. This has motivated us to be the strengths and reputation of the University a new cure to a currently incurable disease; Jim Collins and Kyle Allison chat about combating Climate Change antibiotic-resistant bacteria with sugar. more aggressive in competing for grants and as a whole are our recent induction into the creating a groundbreaking new work of art, Tracking Winter’s Decline contracts and to develop new strategies and Association of American Universities (AAU) music, or literature; uncovering a previously Climate’s Smoking Gun alternative models of funding research. Dur- and the recent opening of the Massachusetts unforeseen phenomenon; or arriving at new No Doubt about Drought ing the past year, we have begun working to Green High Performance Computing Center solutions that will change the way we think On the Cover: about the world and help to make it better for strengthen our ties with industry and cultivate (MGHPCC) in Holyoke. Kyle Allison, Mitchell Zuckoff, Darrell Kotton, Jim Collins, and strategic relationships and collaborations The distinction of joining the AAU, an elite future generations. Stay tuned! Merav Opher. outside our institutional boundaries. These organization of 62 leading research universi- — Andrei E. Ruckenstein WWW.BU.EDU/RESEARCH 1 Lorca’s lost draft of “Office and Denunciation,” discovered in a Library of Congress archive, Paper Trails shows a departure from the version published in Poet in New York. BY CASSANDRA NELSON tell a story different from what Ngom appreciates as Africans’ own “version of THE OTHER SIDE what happened and how they see them- OF THE STORY selves, their worldview, and how they have coped with globalization.” FROM MUSIC, TO POETRY, TO ANCIENT AFRICAN “hidden in plain Because Ajami is a living script, it has BODY OF sight” among the The Rosetta Stone modern-day applications as well—in a manuscripts, Boston University researchers are interested in the POEMS papers of musi- unlocked Egyptian surprising number of fields. Two of Ngom’s ways in which today’s audiences engage historical texts. They cologist Hans Moldenhauer. hieroglyphs in one fell students are combining this particularly Hidden in the The manuscript is revealing on several swoop, but there are complex branch of the humanities with their are driven by a passion for discovery, as well as for clarification, pages of books, the levels, says Maurer. The most dramatic no such shortcuts for studies in public health, looking for ways to so that contemporary readers and musicians can enjoy great suitcases of exiles, departure in terms of content comes near Ajami, a form of modified Arabic script “Ajamize” contemporary medical literature or in a barn: These the end of the poem, in a line Lorca struck that has been used for centuries to com- and peer-reviewed treatment regimens into works as their authors intended. When it comes to manuscripts are just a few of through: “I offer myself to be devoured by mit otherwise oral African languages to language and concepts that can be under- that have been lost, misinterpreted, or undeciphered, these three the places where the manuscripts of Spanish peasants” as an “example to Span- the page. stood by, say, elderly malaria patients in a faculty demonstrate that there’s plenty of work to be done—if you Federico García Lorca ended up in the ish children.” In the published version, this rural African village.