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October 14, 1999 UNL, UNMC Join Forces to Pursue Federal Funding NU Chemist Finds Key to Light's Effect on Plant Growth TC Offers Quick Teaching Endorsements Brainstorming on Budget Priorities Continues

Drummer Josh Austin impersonates Dr. Evil, Oct. 9, during the halftime performance of the UNL Marching Band during the Nebraska-Iowa State Football game. Other characters in the performance included Austin Powers and many flower children. UNL, UNMC Join Forces to Pursue Federal Funding In the increasingly competitive world of federally funded research, one of the few growth areas is the National Institutes of Health, funding research in the health sciences. Of all the federal funding that goes to universities, 60 percent comes from the NIH. Last year, UNL investigators won $4 million in awards from the NIH, or about 4 percent of all sponsored research programs. At the University of Nebraska Medical Center, NIH-sponsored projects netted about $18 million or 50 percent of the total sponsored programs. By combining the strengths of UNL and UNMC in strategic areas, we can enhance our overall competitiveness for these research resources. The kind of health sciences research carried out at UNMC will be enhanced and enriched by incorporating UNL expertise in physics, chemistry and biochemistry, biological sciences, and engineering. In turn, the research being done at UNL in such areas as virology, food-borne pathogens, vaccine and pharmaceutical development, and nanoscale device development will benefit from interactions with the Medical Center perspectives. As the first step in this direction, the Offices of Research on the Lincoln and Medical Center campuses have designed a program of start-up grants in support of inter-campus research projects. Investigators on the two campuses will be invited to form partnerships to develop proposals for joint projects that have a high probability of attracting NIH funding. Successful applicant groups will receive $100,000. The outcome of the project must be a proposal to the NIH. To assist the process of introducing interested investigators to each other, and to facilitate our obtaining the best possible proposals for the first solicitation, workshops will be held on each campus. Marsha Torr, UNL Vice Chancellor for Research, will host three workshops on the UNL campus on the following topics: Virology / Comparative Virology; Health Statistics; and Food Safety / Food - Borne Diseases. Tom Rosenquist, UNMC's director of research development, will host three workshops on the UNMC campus on the following topics: Gene/Environment Interactions: Teratology, Toxicology and Carcinogenesis; Molecular Genetics; and Neurosciences. Contact Torr or Rosenquist if you wish to attend any of these workshops. Following these discussions, there will be a call for team proposals in February 2000, and a selection will be made by mid-March. If this pilot program proves to be successful, it will be expanded in the following year. Please also let us have suggestions for any additional areas that would make good topics for such inter-campus workshops. NU Chemist Finds Key to Light's Effect on Plant Growth By Tom Simons, Office of Public Relations Slower-growing but more robust lawns and healthier rice plants with larger grains could be among the benefits of research results published in the Oct. 7 edition of Nature, the prestigious international weekly journal of science. Pill-Soon Song, Dow Chemical Co. professor of chemistry, and molecular geneticist Gitsu Choi of South Korea's Kumho Life Science Laboratory, announced that their team of researchers has found the missing connection between a plant's initial detection of light and its physiological response at the molecular and cellular level. Song explained that plants possess tiny but indispensable quantities of a pigment protein called phytochrome, which acts as a sort of biological clock. Phytochrome, he said, specifically detects light in red wavelength. "The phytochrome pigment exists in the so-called 'Pr' form - 'P' for phytochrome and subscript 'r' for red light," he said. "This red-light detecting phytochrome detects red light and that initiates chemical reactions to the phytochrome itself and it becomes another form called 'Pfr,' for phytochrome far-red absorbing." Song said that while human eyes are not very sensitive to far-red light, which has much longer wavelengths than red light, plants can detect red and far-red light equally well, and that's where the biological clock comes in. Early in the morning, most of the sunlight that reaches plants is in the far-red spectrum and plants don't respond. But by 9 or 10 a.m., plants receive more red light than far-red light and chemical processes start to happen. "You have to have red light to transform phytochrome from its Pr form to its Pfr form, and the Pfr then triggers a series of molecular and cellular processes that transform plants into photosynthetically active green plants," Song said. "In order to have photosynthesis, you have to have chlorophyll, then you have to have cellular-molecular machinery to do the photosynthetic reactions within the plant cells. Most of those things are developed as a result of light and that process is mediated by phytochrome in its Pfr form." At dusk, when plants begin to receive more far-red light than red light, Pr phytochrome is no longer transformed into the active Pfr form, and they go to sleep for the night. The existence of this biological clock has been known for some time, Song said, but the connection between the physiological response and the light signal hasn't been well-understood - until now. The molecular biological research he performed with funding from the National Institutes of Health and Choi's genetic research have found the connection. "We identified one specific component protein which recognizes the Pfr form and then triggers this pathway that connects the visual signal and the final response," Song said. "This protein turned out to be nucleoside diphosphate kinase, or 'NDPK.' "What is surprising about that is this is a very well-known enzyme, especially in animal and human systems, and it is an extremely unusual enzyme that is known to have multiple functions in animals and humans." Known as NM23 in humans, NDPK is a cancer suppressant in humans and mice. In fruit flies, it's a gene necessary for wing development. NDPK is also unusual in that it acts as a DNA-binding protein while most enzymes (other than those involved in DNA and RNA enzyme reactions) do not interact with DNA. "Our guess is that NDPK could be active as a gene-activating factor," Song said. "In our research, we found that the Pr form of phytochrome is found outside the nucleus of a cell. But when it is converted to Pfr form, it is relocated to the nucleus, where genes are located in the form of DNA, and those genes which are sensitive to light must be turned on. "That's one possibility. Another is that NDPK in its enzymatic function activates G proteins, which mediate signal response in cells. In other words, NDPK mediates external environmental signals eventually into internal cellular response. But these possibilities are speculative right now. That's what we're going to study in the next phase of our research." The discovery by Song and colleagues has some intriguing practical applications that may be possible and they have to do with counteracting an evolutionary trait called "shade-avoidance." To survive, a green plant has to break the soil before the nutrient in its seed runs out, then it has to outgrow neighboring plants to stay out of the shade - where it would receive mostly far-red light, the Pr-Pfr-NDPK chain reaction wouldn't be activated and it would die. If NDPK is activated without red light (and this is possible, Song said), or if the structure of phytochrome can be changed through genetic engineering to absorb far-red light, shade avoidance can be avoided. The fewer resources plants expend in raising their stems to compete with their neighbors for red light, the more resources they save for growing seeds and expanding their root systems. Plants such as rice would develop more and larger grains. They would also be healthier, Song said, because the stress of shade-avoidance weakens them in the face of fungal and other plant diseases. Plants would also require less water, fertilizer and pesticide. Those potential benefits apply to lawn grass, too, which is good news for homeowners on at least two counts. First, a lawn that isn't a money pit for water, fertilizer and pesticide would ease the pressure on a lot of families' budgets. Second, grass blades that aren't madly competing to get to the top of the canopy would grow more slowly than regular grass - and therefore wouldn't have to be mowed as often. "This idea came from that," Song said. "I hate having to mow my lawn every week." To that end, he and his colleagues are working on generating such genetically engineered lawn grass seeds. TC Offers Quick Teaching Endorsements College graduates who would like to go into teaching, but don't have education degrees, might be closer than they think to earning teacher certification. Someone with a degree in English, mathematics, modern foreign languages or one of the sciences, could have Nebraska 7-12 teaching certification in as little as 11 months under the Accelerated Post-baccalaureate Certification Program initiated this fall by Teachers College. "We created this program partly in response to the number of post-baccalaureate students who want certification and partly because the sense of the state is there is a teacher shortage and we need to get more teachers out there," said Dave Wilson, associate professor of curriculum and instruction. "We hope in a year or so that we'll be able to add subjects to the present list of four." Under the program, students will be able to take post-graduate courses that meet the Nebraska teacher endorsement requirements and thus be able to apply for and receive teacher certification from the state. They could also apply their course work toward a master's of secondary teaching degree. For more information about the program, including how to apply, go to its site on the World Wide Web http://tc.unl.edu/curr/p rograms/apbc.html. Information is also available from the TC Student Services Center by telephone, (402) 472-8624, or by mail, 105 Henzlik Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588-0371. Brainstorming on Budget Priorities Continues By Kim Hachiya, Public Relations A number of items have been proposed for inclusion in the university's next biennial budget request, although none have been finalized, said Rick Edwards, senior vice chancellor. Edwards spoke to the Academic Senate Oct. 5. Salaries remain the top priority, he said. According to a regents-approved plan, average increases would be faculty, 4.74 percent; administrators 4.62 percent; and staff, 4.75 percent. If fully funded, the university would need $9.5 million in new money in FY2002 and $10.1 million in FY2003. Edwards notes the legislature has been supportive, but external factors like the economy could change the level of support. He mentioned several other items, in no particular priority. o Research Challenge Fund - $10 million under which UNL would get additional research money based on success at attracting external grants. "We would have to perform to get the money, but this certainly benefits the university and draws the state into the partnership," Edwards said. o Extended Education - $2 million. This would help bridge the gap between state funds for residential students and tuition revenue paid by extended education students. o Public Works - $500,000. Would help shore up existing infrastructure such as power stations. o Undergraduate Scholarships - $1 million. Would go to both need-based and merit scholarships. o Target of Opportunity Hires $1 million. To continue to advance diversity in hiring. o Child Care - $500,000. Despite ongoing studies, Edwards said, few new slots have been added. The need is acute, not only for employees but also for students, particularly at night, he said. Edwards urged faculty to comment on the proposals as soon as possible through the Academic Senate executive committee or by other means such as email. He also said that MYNULOOK, a relational database, is still under development. He hopes for a roll-out yet this fall. In other business, David Lechner, vice president for business and finance in NU Central Administration, explained why insurance costs will go up this next year. The university needs to boost its claims reserves, he said. Costs and claims usage have grown and unless the reserves are increased, the plan could end up with a giant deficit within five years. Lechner said health claims have increased by 11 percent per year, in part because of skyrocketing pharmaceutical claims. The university insures its retirees, he noted, which accounts for NU's high rate of pharmaceutical use. The strategy to address the reserves issue includes asking for a legislative appropriation, increasing employee premiums an average of $12/month depending on individual plans, and "minor coverage modifications." Lechner said the key is that the rate of increase in claims remains at or below 11 percent. With some projecting that the rate will increase to 14 percent, that could be a problem, he said. Lechner said that in the future, NU may begin to look at policy prices and perhaps align pricing with demographics, keeping in mind ability to pay based on salaries.

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