K-State News Insider

Alumni, friends and corporate partners of Kansas State University contributed $90.9 million to K-State through the KSU Foundation during the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2010. This is the fourth-highest total in the 65-year history of the foundation.

“K-State’s alumni and friends are unmatched in their dedication and generosity,” said Lee Harris, Leawood, Kan., chairman of the KSU Foundation Board of Trustees. “We want the 43,327 alumni and friends who contributed this year to know that their generosity is deeply appreciated. We would especially like to thank the 5,529 people who made gifts to K-State for the first time in this past fiscal year.”

Of the $90.9 million total received during the fiscal year, $61.9 million was received in cash, real estate or appreciated securities, and $29 million was committed through pledges and deferred gifts, which will come to the university at a later date.

“There is no question that this level of support by the K-State family will assist Kansas State University in our quest to be recognized among the top 50 public research universities,” said Kirk Schulz, president of Kansas State University.

“Just one-quarter of the university’s operating budget now comes from the state,” Schulz said. “The remainder of the operating budget comes from three sources: tuition, grants and contracts, and private philanthropic support given through the KSU Foundation. The collaborative efforts of the donors, the university staff and the foundation staff make a big difference in support for students, faculty, facilities and technology. Charitable gifts provide a margin of excellence at K-State.”

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The final frontier may be no further than Manhattan, Kan., as a team of Kansas State University researchers launches a project funded by a $1.2 million grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The team — composed of Thomas Barstow, professor of kinesiology; Steven Warren, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Russell Taylor, an engineer in the Electronics Design Laboratory; and Carl Ade, a doctoral student in anatomy and physiology, Salina — will research what physical characteristics are necessary for an astronaut to perform lunar tasks. The team also will study ways to assess whether a person has enough physical capacity to perform the tasks.

“Space travel is inherently dangerous,” Barstow said. “The absence of gravity, which we call microgravity or zero gravity, causes our bodies to deteriorate in a variety of ways.”

A microgravity environment causes the weakening of muscles and the immune system, and it deteriorates the cardiovascular system’s ability to regulate blood pressure. Barstow said this can affect an astronaut’s ability to perform necessary tasks, such as climbing ladders, walking or opening doors. For the safety of the astronauts, NASA wants to make sure they are physically fit enough to perform those tasks during future missions to the moon and even Mars.

“What seems like simple tasks as part of their life on the moon or other destinations could be life threatening if the astronauts aren’t strong enough to do those tasks,” Barstow said.

The goal of the research, Barstow said, is to develop a simple test or a series of tests that astronauts can use in space to identify their physical conditioning and to determine if they have the capacity to perform lunar tasks.

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Kansas State University is among the most military-friendly schools in the nation, according to G.I. Jobs magazine.

The magazine has included K-State on its 2011 list of schools that cater to the military. It’s the second year in a row K-State has received the honor, which is given to only 15 percent of all colleges, universities and trade schools in the nation.

G.I. Jobs magazine shows people affiliated with the military how to continue their education and transition into the civilian work force. According to the magazine, military-friendly schools are ones with a strong interest in recruiting and retaining military students. K-State had more than 1,100 military-related students in the spring 2010 semester.

As part of the honor, the university will be included in G.I. Jobs magazine’s 2011 Guide to Military Friend Schools, to be released in September, and in an online listing at http://MilitaryFriendlySchools.com.

“This honor speaks highly of K-State’s long tradition of serving the educational needs of our veterans, active-duty military personnel and their family members,” said Pat Bosco, vice president for student life and dean of students. “Whether they’re taking classes on campus, through our many distance education programs or through our longstanding programs at Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth, K-State is committed to providing the services and support they need to succeed.”

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Michael Wesch has earned many accolades for his expertise and creativity in the use of digital technology to enhance student learning. He’s received national professor of the year honors, been named an Emerging Explorer by National Geographic, and has been dubbed “the explainer” by Wired magazine.

Now the associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University can add a new title to his growing list of national honors: thought leader.

Wesch is among the three individuals specially invited to be the first Fellows of the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education. The new fellowship program connects the institute and its members to selected thought leaders in higher education — thought leaders like Wesch.

Wesch knows well why creativity matters when it comes to student learning. He is internationally known for his work on the effects of new media on society and culture. His videos on culture, technology, education and information have been viewed by millions, translated into more than 15 languages and shown at international film festivals and major academic conferences around the world. His work includes such popular YouTube videos as “The Machine is Us/ing Us” and “A Vision of Students Today.”

As a Fellow, Wesch will spend the next year helping his peers explore the big picture of the learning experience. He will discuss his views on how learning happens and why creative approaches to learning matter. He and the other Fellows will participate in two videoconference sessions during the year and attend the 2011 National Institute of Technology in Liberal Education summit.

“I’m looking forward to working with the institute and the other Fellows to expand our vision for ‘literacy’ in higher education,” he said. “It is no longer enough to be able to read and write effectively in text only; we must expand our notion of literacy to include the ability to work effectively through multiple media forms, and to recognize how different media are shaping our society.”

When placing a spread bet on college football, a bettor’s success might have as much to do with geography as with luck.

When a Kansas State University economist combined his enthusiasm for college football with his expertise in arid land studies, he and a colleague found that bettors have a good chance of making money by placing a spread bet on an arid-region team when it hosts a humid-region team.

K-State’s Daniel Kuester is an assistant professor and the Roger Trenary Chair in Economics at K-State. He’s also a college football enthusiast and the executive director of the Association of Arid Lands Studies.

This triangle of interests led to the spread betting market research published in the November 2009 issue of the Journal of Economics and Finance. His co-author is Shane Sanders, an assistant professor of economics at Nicholls State University who received his doctorate in economics from K-State.

Their study shows that a considerable spread betting bias occurs when NCAA Division I-A college football teams from humid regions travel to arid regions. This discovery opens up a significant opportunity for profit in the spread-betting market.

“As economists we expect markets to be efficient,” Kuester said. “I find any market that behaves differently than we expect fascinating. I certainly didn’t expect there to be an arbitrage opportunity that was statistically significant when studying this data.”

In spread-betting markets, wagers are made based on whether a favored team will win by a certain margin, which is the point spread. An efficient market will feature a final pre-game spread that constitutes the median expected game outcome, where the spread is met by the favored team half of the time.

Using data from the Phil Steele’s College Football Preview Magazine — which uses betting lines in Las Vegas for information — Kuester and Sanders studied the spread betting market of 4,345 games during the seven seasons of NCAA Division I-A football from 2000 to 2006.

The researchers were trying to determine if the market is efficient — that the market prices fully reflect all known information. In an efficient market, there should be no advantage because there should be no additional information not already available to everyone else in the market.

Because college football is a physically strenuous outdoor sport in which teams often play in regions they’re not acclimated to, the researchers wanted to know whether bettors understand the effects of regional climate on athletes.If these effects aren’t understood in the market, betting markets for interregional games will likely be less efficient than betting markets for intraregional games.

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Understanding how cancer cells communicate with each other and how to enhance their receptiveness to drug treatments is the focus of promising work by a Kansas State University researcher.

Annelise Nguyen, assistant professor of toxicology in the department of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology at K-State’s College of Veterinary Medicine, recently received a $370,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue her cancer research.

“For the past five years I’ve focused on cell communication to understand the pathways between cells,” Nguyen said. “The idea that I came up with is: What if giving a patient drugs, including chemotherapeutic drugs and pain relievers, actually shuts down cell communication, preventing the drug from passing from one cell to the next? If so, the drug isn’t very effective, and that’s why you have to increase dosages to reach most cells. Increasing the drug levels makes you resistant to the drug itself; thus, drug resistance is one of the challenges in the treatment of cancer.”

Nguyen has worked with K-State’s Duy Hua, university distinguished professor of chemistry, to synthesize a new compound — a class of substitute quinolines — and found that it possessed potent inhibitory activities against T47D breast cancer cells.

“What I demonstrate with this compound is that it enhances cell communication in breast cancer cells,” Nguyen said. “What if we reopen the channels where cancer cells have low cell communication activity? In conjunction with existing chemotherapeutic drugs, can we reduce the concentration of these drugs by treating the patient with our cell communication enhancer? If so, the toxicity of these drugs will pass from cell to cell much more efficiently than previously. That’s what this grant is all about.”

The compound has been successful enough that Hua and Nguyen have applied for a patent. Nguyen said her work may have potential for more than just breast cancer treatments.

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A national biosecurity symposium Monday, Aug. 30, in Kansas City, Mo., will showcase biosecurity research and industry at Kansas State University and the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor.

“Biosecurity: Our Regional and National Response” will be 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Kansas City Convention Center. National and regional experts will discuss the challenges in protecting the nation’s animal agriculture, food supply and public health against biological threats and diseases. The symposium, in conjunction with the Central Veterinary Conference Kansas City, is sponsored by the Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute, the Kansas City Animal Health Corridor and the veterinary programs at K-State and the University of Missouri.

Biosecurity and bioscience research are finding a home on the plains. According to Business Facilities magazine, Manhattan rates second in the nation for economic growth potential because the city and K-State will be the site of the National Bio- and Agro-defense Facility. Also known as NBAF, the facility will be the premier federal lab for tackling diseases threatening the nation’s agricultural economy and food supply. In addition, the magazine also ranked the state of Kansas fifth in the nation in biotechnology strength, citing NBAF and the animal health research programs at K-State as among the reasons for the high ranking.

Keynote speakers at the symposium include K-State’s Jerry and Nancy Jaax, who will present “Lessons From the Hot Zone” at 1:15 p.m. The Jaaxes are veterinarians who worked for more than 20 years in federal biosecurity labs at Frederick, Md. They were key participants in dealing with the 1989 Reston Ebola outbreak, which was detailed in Richard Preston’s best-selling book, “The Hot Zone.” Jerry Jaax is K-State associate vice president for research compliance and university veterinarian; Nancy Jaax is an adjunct professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology.

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A microscopic gene may play a gigantic role when it comes to cancerous tissue in the human body, according to one Kansas State University research team.

The team is investigating mutation within the ADAM12 gene of the A Disintegrin and Metalloprotease family, or ADAM family, and its role in breast cancer.

“We want to know whether ADAM12 is a good guy or a bad guy in breast cancer,” said Anna Zolkiewska, associate professor of biochemistry and research team leader.

If researchers can answer this question about ADAM12, Zolkiewska said it could lead to more effective therapies and treatments due to a better understanding of cancer’s components. This, however, hinges on discovering the exact nature of ADAM12, about which little is known. Research has uncovered some interesting information — and raised more questions, Zolkiewska said.

“Typically human cells have very little ADAM12 protein, but the abundance is suddenly very high in cancer tissue,” she said. “When we look even closer, we find a very high level of ADAM12 expression in what we call cancer stem cells. Those cells are the most vicious as they drive the tumor growth.”

Although chemotherapy and radiotherapy kill tumors, they are ineffective on the cancer stem cells, Zolkiewska said. Without being surgically removed from the body, the stem cells will grow another tumor over the course of a few years. This again raises the question as to the role of ADAM12.

“Is it helping that tumor re-grow or is it trying to prevent it?” Zolkiewska asks.

Perhaps the most perplexing question the team hopes to solve is why the ADAM12 gene mutates inside cancer tissue.

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The tumultuous feelings parents have when they first learn their child will be born with Down syndrome give way to joy and resilience, according to preliminary data from a study by researchers at Kansas State University and Texas Tech University.

Briana Nelson Goff and Nicole Springer, both mothers of a child with Down syndrome, can attest to the findings. Goff is associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Human Ecology and professor of family studies and human services at K-State, and Springer is director of the Texas Tech University Family Therapy Clinic.

The two researchers, who met while completing their doctoral work at Texas Tech, reconnected after learning of their personal connection as parents. Their study is called “My Kid Has More Chromosomes Than Yours! The Journey to Resilience and Hope in Parenting a Child with Down Syndrome.”

“The goal of our study is to help parents and professionals understand that having a child with Down syndrome isn’t the end of the world; it can be a very positive experience,” Goff said.

The researchers collected data through an online survey for parents of children with Down syndrome. Together with their student teams, they are analyzing the more than 500 responses they’ve received since the survey went live October 2009.

The researchers found that the parents’ experiences in first learning their child had Down syndrome had similarities, regardless of whether the diagnosis was before or after the birth.

“The majority said it was very devastating, and went through periods of depression, grief, mourning and shock, and felt scared, angry, disappointed or helpless,” Goff said.

However, once those initial feelings subsided, parents reported positive experiences and joy raising a child with special needs.

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A new guide rates Kansas State University as among the best undergraduate schools in the nation.

K-State is in the 2011 edition of “The Best 373 Colleges,” just released by The Princeton Review and Random House. Only about 15 percent of the nation’s 2,500 four-year colleges and two Canadian colleges are profiled in the book.

The primary criteria for selecting schools in the book is outstanding academics, according to Robert Franek, Princeton Review’s senior vice president/publishing and guide author. Schools also are selected based on evaluations of institutional data, campus visits, surveys of students, and the opinions of The Princeton Review staff and the company’s National College Counselor Advisory Board.

“K-State’s more than 250 academic programs and majors, guided by our award-winning and caring faculty, provide students with the educational opportunities they need to succeed,” said Pat Bosco, vice president for student life and dean of students at K-State. “This national recognition of our university and our academic program show K-State is well on its way to becoming one of the top 50 universities in the nation in the next 15 years.”

It’s the second book this year by The Princeton Review to rank K-State as among the best schools in the nation. The university also was selected for “Princeton Review’s Guide to 286 Green Colleges.” The free comprehensive guidebook profiles the nation’s most environmentally responsible campuses, with K-State the only school in Kansas to be included in the green guide.

K-State has a two-page profile in the “The Best 373 Colleges” that includes information on academics, student life and the student body, admissions, student financial assistance and more.

Students surveyed for the guide called K-State tremendously affordable and a big school with a small-school feel. Students also noted that the administration gives them a large say in everything the university does, and that President Kirk Schulz, Bosco and other key administrators are “ultra-accessible” for such a large school.

The book also ranks the top 20 schools in 62 categories, which are based on the student surveys.

Among the categories where K-State rates highly is town-gown relations. Students said Manhattan is a great college town that has everything needed for college life.