Environmental Sustainability Education at the University of Michigan: Collaboration with Industry to Provide Experiential Learning Opportunities

The Concentrations in Environmental Sustainability (ConsEnSus) Program at the University of Michigan is a new multi-disciplinary opportunity for graduate students in the College of Engineering to pursue interests in environmental sustainability white obtaining a traditional engineering Master\u27s degree. Students from several engineering departments complement traditional disciplinary course requirements with courses in environmental regulations, policies, and technology. A required case studies course of the ConsEnSus Program brings practicing engineers together with students to discuss real-world sustainability problems. The industrial participants interactively present relevant case studies, and provide opportunities for experiential learning through classroom activities and term projects. This paper will further explain the ConsEnSus Program, its implementation, the initial successes of the program, and the case studies course and term project that was developed in collaboration with industry

Profiling humoral autoimmune repertoire of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) patients and development of a disease-associated protein chip

Dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) is a myocardial disease characterized by progressive depression of myocardial contractile function and ventricular dilatation. Thirty percent of DCM patients belong to the inherited genetic form; the rest may be idiopathic, viral, autoimmune, or immune-mediated associated with a viral infection. Disturbances in humoral and cellular immunity have been described in cases of myocarditis and DCM. A number of autoantibodies against cardiac cell proteins have been identified in DCM. In this study, we have profiled the autoantibody repertoire of plasma from DCM patients against a human protein array consisting of 37 200 redundant, recombinant human proteins and performed qualitative and quantitative validation of these putative autoantigens on protein microarrays to identify novel putative DCM specific autoantigens. In addition to analyzing the whole IgG autoantibody repertoire, we have also analyzed the IgG3 antibody repertoire in the plasma samples to study the characteristics of IgG3 subclass antibodies. By combining screening of a protein expression library with protein microarray technology, we have detected 26 proteins identified by the IgG antibody repertoire and 6 proteins bound by the IgG3 subclass. Several of these autoantibodies found in plasma of DCM patients, such as the autoantibody against the Kv channel-interacting protein, are associated with heart failure

Mouse protein arrays from a TH1 cell cDNA library for antibody screening and serum profiling

The mouse is the premier genetic model organism for the study of disease and development. We describe the establishment of a mouse T helper cell type 1 (TH1) protein expression library that provides direct access to thousands of recombinant mouse proteins, in particular those associated with immune responses. The advantage of a system based on the combination of large cDNA expression libraries with microarray technology is the direct connection of the DNA sequence information from a particular clone to its recombinant, expressed protein. We have generated a mouse TH1 expression cDNA library and used protein arrays of this library to characterize the specificity and cross-reactivity of antibodies. Additionally, we have profiled the autoantibody repertoire in serum of a mouse model for systemic lupus erythematosus on these protein arrays and validated the putative autoantigens on highly sensitive protein microarrays

Penn State University NSF GK-12 Project: Using Web-Based Education and Interaction with K-12 and College Freshman to Promote Science and Engineering

Penn State University has hosted an NSF-sponsored GK-12 Outreach project for the past five years, and has just begun the second phase of the project. The Penn State project utilizes the talents of many science and engineering graduate students as teachers, mentors and role models for the K-12 classrooms. The project focuses on developing skills of students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics through the use of Advanced Transportation Technologies. A new project component was devised and implemented-the interaction of K-12 students with college freshman via a website project. The college freshmen were asked to create a website describing a component of Clean Energy , which was to include an assessment tool to provide feedback on their website. When possible, the college freshmen were encouraged to use active learning and inquiry-based learning concepts. This was encouraged so that the college freshman had an opportunity to practice developing scientific inquiry as a skill through a presentation, and provided the K-12 classroom students a unique opportunity to learn through inquiry. The K-12 students were invited to participate in the research by reviewing and critiquing these websites through feedback via the website to the college freshman. The feedback could take many forms, including specific comments and critique along with a creative assessment tool that the college freshman decided to present with their subject materials. This paper will review the educational outcomes garnered by the students, and provide feedback and analysis from the K-12 and college freshman participants

Mol Cell Proteomics

Protein biochips have a great potential in future parallel processing of complex samples as a research tool and in diagnostics. For the generation of protein biochips, highly automated technologies have been developed for cDNA expression library production, high throughput protein expression, large scale analysis of proteins, and protein microarray generation. Using this technology, we present here a strategy to identify potential autoantigens involved in the pathogenesis of alopecia areata, an often chronic disease leading to the rapid loss of scalp hair. Only little is known about the putative autoantigen(s) involved in this process. By combining protein microarray technology with the use of large cDNA expression libraries, we profiled the autoantibody repertoire of sera from alopecia areata patients against a human protein array consisting of 37,200 redundant, recombinant human proteins. The data sets obtained from incubations with patient sera were compared with control sera from clinically healthy persons and to background incubations with anti-human IgG antibodies. From these results, a smaller protein subset was generated and subjected to qualitative and quantitative validation on highly sensitive protein microarrays to identify novel alopecia areata-associated autoantigens. Eight autoantigens were identified by protein chip technology and were successfully confirmed by Western blot analysis. These autoantigens were arrayed on protein microarrays to generate a disease-associated protein chip. To confirm the specificity of the results obtained, sera from patients with psoriasis or hand and foot eczema as well as skin allergy were additionally examined on the disease-associated protein chip. By using alopecia areata as a model for an autoimmune disease, our investigations show that the protein microarray technology has potential for the identification and evaluation of autoantigens as well as in diagnosis such as to differentiate alopecia areata from other skin diseases

Förster Resonance Energy Transfer between Core/Shell Quantum Dots and Bacteriorhodopsin

An energy transfer relationship between core-shell CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) and the optical protein bacteriorhodopsin (bR) is shown, demonstrating a distance-dependent energy transfer with 88.2% and 51.1% of the QD energy being transferred to the bR monomer at separation distances of 3.5 nm and 8.5 nm, respectively. Fluorescence lifetime measurements isolate nonradiative energy transfer, other than optical absorptive mechanisms, with the effective QD excited state lifetime reducing from 18.0 ns to 13.3 ns with bR integration, demonstrating the Förster resonance energy transfer contributes to 26.1% of the transferred QD energy at the 3.5 nm separation distance. The established direct energy transfer mechanism holds the potential to enhance the bR spectral range and sensitivity of energies that the protein can utilize, increasing its subsequent photocurrent generation, a significant potential expansion of the applicability of bR in solar cell, biosensing, biocomputing, optoelectronic, and imaging technologies

Atomic mass dependence of \Xi^- and \overline{\Xi}^+ production in central 250 GeV \pi^- nucleon interactions

We present the first measurement of the atomic mass dependence of central \Xi^- and \overline{\Xi}^+ production. It is measured using a sample of 22,459 \Xi^-'s and \overline{\Xi}^+'s produced in collisions between a 250 GeV \pi^- beam and targets of beryllium, aluminum, copper, and tungsten. The relative cross sections are fit to the two parameter function \sigma_0 A^\alpha, where A is the atomic mass. We measure \alpha = 0.924+-0.020+-0.025, for Feynman-x in the range -0.09 < x_F < 0.15.Comment: 10 pages, revtex, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Search for R-parity Violating Supersymmetry in Dimuon and Four-Jets Channel

We present results of a search for R-parity-violating decay of the neutralino chi_1^0, taken to be the Lightest Supersymmetric Particle. It is assumed that this decay proceeds through one of the lepton-number violating couplings lambda-prime_2jk (j=1,2; k=1,2,3). This search is based on 77.5 pb-1 of data, collected by the D0 experiment at the Fermilab Tevatron in ppbar collisions at a center of mass energy of 1.8 TeV in 1992-1995.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure