Research Update Newsletter
From UChicago Argonne, LLC
January 18, 2008
This Month in Research Update:
- Office of the Vice President for Research and for National Laboratories (OVPRANL) News
- Alternative Energy Shines in Polsky Spotlight
- Research Highlights
- In Fermi’s Footsteps
- Events
- Physics department kicks off holidays with a “bang”
- Fermilab offers Family Open House on Sunday, Jan. 27
- University January Highlights
- Research in the News
- First rigorous analysis defines impact of Medicare Part D
- New book reveals an evolutionary journey of the human body
- Recurrent genetic deletion linked to autism
- Machinists build precision scientific instruments for South Pole, Mars, places in between
- Lecture series to highlight cancer and immune system interactions
- Lack of deep sleep may increase risk of type 2 diabetes
OVPRANL News
Alternative Energy Shines in Polsky Spotlight
On Thursday, November 29, the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business (GSB) Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship, Argonne National Laboratory, the Association for Corporate Growth, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (Illinois DCEO), and Reed Smith LLP, hosted the first Midwest Alternative Energy Venture Forum (MAEVF) before a sell-out crowd at Chicago’s GSB’s Gleacher Center. The purpose of the conference was to highlight innovative, alternative-energy technologies being developed in the Midwest.
The conference was the brainchild of Jim Greenberger, a partner in the law firm of Reed Smith LLP and program chair of the MAEVF. Having participated in the growing number of alternative-energy shows taking place on the West Coast, Greenberger felt that the time was right for the Midwest to host a show of its own. “The conference was an effort to educate Midwest investors about the incredible resources and opportunities available to them in their own back yards in alternative-energy technology,” said Greenberger.
Close to two years in the making, the MAEVF drew hundreds of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, consultants, and other professionals from the U.S. and across the globe who came to learn about new technologies, hear from respected scientists and investors, and discover the growing alternative-energy sector in the Midwest.
Welcoming remarks were made by Invenergy founder Michael Polsky, Argonne director Robert Rosner, and Illinois DCEO director Jack Lavin. Over lunch, John Denniston, partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, & Byers, highlighted the many environmental challenges facing the planet over the next century. Denniston proposed that the U.S. take the lead in developing the alternative-energy technology, calling greentech “our generation’s moon shot.”
The day’s first panel discussions featured scientists from Argonne who discussed the next breakthroughs in alternative-energy technology, including bio-based fuels and chemicals, fuel cell technology, batteries, and solar.
“Biofuels is largely going to be a Midwest phenomenon in the U.S.,” said Seth Snyder, Section Leader, Chemical and Biological Technology, after the conference. “We’re the breadbasket where the materials will be grown and it’s a logical place where you’re going to develop the companies that will make use of it.
“We have a number of projects at Argonne for making ethanol, other biofuels and other things traditionally made from petroleum, so the Midwest is the right place and this is the right time to do the work,” said Snyder.
Argonne also has the potential to be a big player when it comes to fuel cell and battery technology, said Snyder. “The traditional home of vehicle technologies in the U.S. is the Midwest,” he said. “We think of Detroit, but the manufacturing capabilities are spread across the Midwest. They’re in Illinois, Ohio. They’re across the Midwest, and Argonne is one of the leaders in supporting vehicle technologies.”
Government funding has increased for alternative-energy research. According to Snyder, the Department of Energy’s Office of the Biomass Program (one of his group’s major sponsors) almost tripled their budget in the last two years.
Fourteen Midwestern companies covering alternative-energy technologies as varied as solar panels, composite materials for turbine blades, and electric cars made presentations. The companies were selected by an expert panel of investors from more than 50 companies who had responded to a request for proposals issued by the MAEVF steering committee prior to the conference.
“Presenting at the forum forced us to get a much clearer picture of our business plan and opportunities,” said Dan Hutcheson, president of WebCore Technologies, Inc., and a presenter at the show. “As a company that’s transitioning from validation stage into market entry, we are evaluating and quantifying our growth capital needs. The feedback we received was very astute and helpful.”
The day concluded with a networking reception where attendees had the opportunity to meet presenters and speakers to trade ideas and business information.
“The conference demonstrated that we do have a venture capital community here and that there is market demand for these technologies,” said Robert Rosenberg, associate vice president for public affairs communication, The University of Chicago. “Our problem in the Midwest right now is that we leak IT. Talented people with good ideas – as well as patents- are attracted by venture money and lured to other places.
“Helping people anchor their technologies here through venture capital investment and, increasingly, state support will transform the landscape,” said Rosenberg. “It’s essential to our ability to recruit and retain talented faculty as well as entrepreneurs.”
One scientist-turned-entrepreneur who presented at the conference is a pioneer in this the new landscape. Daphne Preuss, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Chromatin, Inc., considered a number of locations around the country before settling her agri-bio company on Chicago’s south side.
“We’re extremely excited here,” said Preuss. “What I’m hearing now from investors who are looking at clean tech or biofuels is that they are finding a lot of opportunities in the Midwest. I have a friend in the Bay Area who said he’s made more flights to Chicago this year than he can remember.”
Preuss believes the new Energy Bill signed by President Bush on December 18, 2007 which sets a mandatory Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requirement that fuel producers use at least 36 billion gallons of biofuel in 2022— a nearly five-fold increase over current levels— is the major reason why investors are increasingly drawn to the Midwest. The law, she explains, is literally creating an industry of turning cellulose [the stuff that makes plant stems] into fuel.
“This is the place where the seed stocks are grown. This is the place where people know how to handle crops,” said Preuss. “So when it comes to growing fuel as well as locating facilities, the Heartland is really the place people are looking at.”
On the web: For more stories and images from the conference click here.
Research Highlights
In Fermi’s Footsteps
Last summer, three University of Chicago undergraduates explored some of science’s most pressing questions as interns at Argonne National Laboratory.
Long before Enrico Fermi became a Nobel laureate, he was an undergraduate student working on X-ray diffraction in his adviser’s lab. Last summer, three Chicago undergraduates followed in the physicist’s footsteps by teaming up with researchers to explore some big questions in the sciences as interns at Argonne National Laboratory. Argonne, which Fermi founded, is one of the nation’s leading centers for federally funded scientific research and is managed by the University of Chicago. The lab’s ten-week, paid summer internship program is funded by the University’s vice president for research and national laboratories. The program gives students hands-on experience working on scientific research at the cutting edge in a laboratory of national stature. For their part, the scientists who work with them get to add a bright young mind to their labs. Full story.
return to topEvents
Physics department kicks off holidays with a “bang”
The holidays began with a “bang” in December 2007 for the University’s Physics Department as students, families, teachers and neighbors gathered in laboratories inside the Gordon Center to participate in hands-on demonstrations and learn about some of the exciting science talking place there. Later, physics professors Heinrich Jaeger and Sidney Nagel gave a lecture in a filled-to-capacity lecture room in the Kersten Physics Teaching Center, where they performed a host of experiments designed to entertain and demonstrate the powerful forces of cause and effect.
“I liked the part where they made ice cream [in University Provost Thomas Rosenbaum’s lab] with the liquid nitrogen. It kind of tasted like real ice cream,” says 9-year-old Raymond Adams who attended the event with his mother and sister.
“It was great for young children and adults,” said Lisa Adams, Raymond’s mom, who home-schools her kids. “Two of the labs were studying magnets and lights — both topics that the kids are studying this year. It was so wonderful for the kids to see what a real lab looks like. They were excited and so was I. They were able to see that what they were studying now may apply to some things that they may want to study in the future if they decide to go into the sciences.”
The title of the lecture was “Physics with a Bang!!” While demonstrating the effects of pressure, Jaeger and Nagel crushed a 55-gallon steel drum as if it were a Coke can. The pair used a vacuum bazooka to accelerate a ping pong ball through a thick piece of cardboard at the speed of sound. While sitting on a little stool with wheels, Jaeger used a fire extinguisher to accelerate himself through the room like he was sitting on a rocket chair. A liquid-nitrogen-filled soda bottle that, on exploding, propelled a large trash can to the lecture hall ceiling rounded out the act.
“We wanted to have fun and to convey that we can have fun with physics,” says Jaeger. “So we set off a lot of blasts — some things were mesmerizing, some were really loud, and some were just totally astonishing.”
Inspiration for the open house and lecture, says Jaeger, came from a famous lecture series founded in 1826 by Michael Faraday, an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry at The Royal Institution of Great Britain. The series, known as the Friday Evening Discourses and Christmas Lectures for young people, continue to this day.
What made the Nagel/Jaeger lecture unique, in addition to the loud and fast explosions, was the use of high-speed video equipment to record and provide instant replays of the demonstrations during the lecture itself. The idea was carried out by two physics graduate students, John Royer and Nathan Keim, who used research-grade instrumentation to capture the action at 20,000 frames per second, and then play it back to the audience.
Van Bistrow, Director, Instructional Labs and Lecture Facilities, and Dennis Gordon, Lecture Demonstrator, of the Physics Department, also played a key role in the event’s success, putting in many extra hours to test the demonstrations and to make sure they worked before the day of the event. Another important contributor was Eileen Sheu, Special Projects Coordinator and Outreach Director for Materials Research Science and Engineering Center and the James Franck Institute, who helped to pull the event together.
“We were really delighted to see the response of so many people from the neighborhood, plus colleagues, students, and people who do not usually come to us here in physics,” says Jaeger. “We are totally delighted that we filled the room and hope this becomes an annual event.”
Related Videos:
Watch highlights of the “Physics with a Bang!” event; each video is approximately five minutes long:
Fermilab offers Family Open House on Sunday, Jan. 27
Tours, demonstrations and hands-on activities for the entire family
This year's Family Open House at the Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 27. The event offers free family-style hands-on activities and exhibits, make-and-take home projects, science shows and tours. More than 2,000 people are expected to attend.
The highlights of this year's program will include hourly cryogenics shows by Jerry Zimmerman as "Mr. Freeze," the popular Ask-a-Scientist session on the 15th floor of Wilson Hall, and tours of the linear accelerator. Full story.
Click here for full University January Highlights.
Research in the News
First rigorous analysis defines impact of Medicare Part D
The most thorough study to date of the impact of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit (Part D) found that this benefit led to a 13.1 percent decrease in out-of-pocket expenses for patients and a 5.9 percent increase in prescription use. Full story.
New book reveals an evolutionary journey of the human body
Neil Shubin provides “a convincing case of evolution from fish to man” in Your Inner Fish
Paleontologist Neil Shubin unites the discoveries of fossils and the sciences of paleontology and genetics with his experience of teaching human anatomy into a written voyage of evolution, titled Your Inner Fish: A Journey Through the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body. Full story.
Recurrent genetic deletion linked to autism
Loss of a small portion of chromosome 16, known as 16p11.2, is significantly associated with autism report researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in an article, published Dec. 21, 2007, online by the journal Human Molecular Genetics. Full story.
Machinists build precision scientific instruments for South Pole, Mars, places in between
A distinguished European scientist appeared unannounced at the University in the early 1950s, when Roger Hildebrand was a young Assistant Professor in Physics.
“He said there was someone he wanted to meet,” said Hildebrand, the Samuel K. Allison Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in Physics. So Hildebrand asked if he wanted to meet Enrico Fermi, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist and a member of the Chicago faculty.
“He said, ‘Well, no. What I had in mind was meeting Tom O’Donnell.’”
As then-manager of the University’s central machine shop, O’Donnell had worked closely with the late Albert Michelson, the University’s first Nobel Prize-winning scientist. “Michelson made his mark by extremely precise measurements of various things like the speed of light. Tom O’Donnell was the guy who built that instrumentation,” Hildebrand said. Full story.
Lecture series to highlight cancer and immune system interactions
Learn about cancer and immune system interactions, as well as cancer therapies, from a University of Chicago Medical Center expert in a series of eight free lectures beginning Jan. 12. During the sixth annual Charles B. Huggins Lecture Series, cancer and immunology specialist Judy L. Cannon, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Medicine, Section of Pulmonary and Critical Care at Chicago, will talk about how knowing the immune system can help us better understand and treat cancer. Full story.
Lack of deep sleep may increase risk of type 2 diabetes
Suppression of slow-wave sleep in healthy young adults significantly decreases their ability to regulate blood-sugar levels and increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, report researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center in the “Early Edition” of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, available online as soon as Dec. 31, 2007. Full story.
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