CALS Perspectives Magazine Winter 2011

NC STATE UNIVERSITY

perspectives

The Magazine of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Winter 2012

Bringing

science to

life winter 2012

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Becky Kirkland

Celebrating the work of life scientists

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n last summer’s issue of Perspectives, we brought you a collection of articles about the impacts of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ agriculture programs, including its Extension and research efforts, with specific examples of how the work of the College has made a difference to North Carolinians. In this issue, we turn to the College’s life sciences in recognition of the contributions and impacts those programs are making while bringing innovative solutions to the challenges facing our citizens locally, nationally and globally. CALS life scientists work mainly in six departments — Biology, Genetics, Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Microbiology, Molecular and Structural Biochemistry, and Plant Biology. Here you will learn of the efforts of some of these experts — faculty members, students, alumni — in bettering human health and well-being, in preventing illness, in protecting the environment, in solving problems.

Biology’s Dr. Heather Patisaul is studying the effects of certain man-made chemicals on human health, particularly in early fetal and neonatal development. Biochemistry’s Dr. Dennis Brown and Dr. Raquel Hernadez, studying viral structure, have developed a vaccine that is effective against dengue fever, a tropical disease that annually infects millions worldwide. Microbiologist Dr. Hosni Hassan is working with CALS poultry scientist Dr. Matt Koci to develop a vaccine that would protect poultry — and thus the people who consume poultry products — from Salmonella. And food scientist Dr. Sophia Kathariou hopes to reduce severe food-related illness by identifying the lineages of two particularly problematic bacteria that contaminate food.

Dr. Amy Grunden of Microbiology and Plant Biology’s Dr. Heike Sederoff seek to answer the problem of diminishing petroleum reserves by finding new ways to make fuels from plants and algae, while microbiologist Dr. Michael Hyman is studying how soil microbes can be used to clean up fuel spills and protect groundwater from contamination.

Meanwhile alumnae Dr. Vickie Wilson (1999 environmental and molecular toxicology Ph.D.) and Kimberly Spence (2011 bachelor’s degree in biological sciences) have taken their CALS life sciences degrees in similar directions. Wilson is a branch

Dr. Johnny Wynne chief in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxicology Assessment Division. Spence works with the Environmental Defense Fund in water resources and public policy, where lately she has focused on the potential natural resource and other effects if the fracking (natural gas accessing) industry comes to North Carolina.

Along with the reports of these efforts are revelations of a unique postdoctoral teaching program in our Biotechnology Program; activities by the Kannapolis Scholars Program to address the problem of childhood obesity; and preparations of a new course in genetic ethics by a Genetics Department graduate student. And there’s news about an innovative Department of Biology project to map the ants living in urban areas across the United States.

In an era of life sciences, our College is at the forefront.

Johnny Wynne, Dean College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

perspectives

NC STATE UNIVERSITY

Perspectives is online at the CALS News Center: www.cals.ncsu.edu/agcomm/news-center/

The Magazine of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

FEATURES

Winter 2012 Vol. 14, No. 1

2 Bringing Science to Life CALS life scientists are at the forefront in this era of biology.

Managing Editor: Terri Leith Design and Layout: Vickie Guin Staff Photographers: Becky Kirkland, Marc Hall, Roger Winstead

11 Foundations for Intervention Reducing foodborne illness is goal of CALS microbiologist’s research.

Staff Writers: Dave Caldwell, Natalie E. Hampton, Terri Leith, Dee Shore, Suzanne Stanard

13 Healthy Connections Graduate student Amanda Draut and fellow Kannapolis Scholars host conference to improve communications about childhood obesity.

Contributors: Erin McCrary, Rhonda Green, Jeanne Marie Wallace, NCSU News Services

39,000 copies of this public document were printed at a cost of $19,500, or $.50 per copy.

Printed on recycled paper.

Perspectives is published by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at North Carolina State University.

Printed by TCGLegacy, Garner, N.C.

contents

15 It’s Muscadine Time!

A grape smoothie is just one of many products with powerful potential, thanks to a CALS partnership with muscadine growers.

Third Class Postage paid at Raleigh, NC 27611.

Correspondence and requests for change of address should be addressed to Perspectives Editor, Box 7603, N.C. State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7603.

18 Fresh off the Bench Eager instructors, ‘cool’ courses and the very latest from the lab are the benefits of the Biotechnology Program’s unique teaching postdoctoral fellowship.

William R. “Randy” Woodson, Chancellor Johnny C. Wynne, Dean and Executive Director for Agricultural Programs

21 College Profile Weed science specialist Fred Yelverton’s sphere of influence spans the globe but is most felt at home in North Carolina.

Kenneth L. Esbenshade, Associate Dean and Director, Academic Programs Joe Zublena, Associate Dean and Director, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service

NOTEWORTHY

David Smith, Associate Dean and Director, North Carolina Agricultural Research Service Sylvia Blankenship, Associate Dean for Administration

24 NEWS Protecting poultry from Salmonella • April Wynn chosen for Preparing the Professorate program • Biodiversity project maps urban ants • ‘Stewards of the Future’ research conference coming in April • Specialist shows how ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ scenario was not norm • Student conducts research to address issues of HIV in South Africa • ARE students travel to East Asia

Keith D. Oakley, Executive Director, Advancement 919.515.2000 W. Scott Troutman, Executive Director, Alumni and Friends Society

31 ALUMNI NC STATE UNIVERSITY

perspectives

The Magazine of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Winter 2012

Kimberly Spence studies potential effects of fracking • Alumnus brings solutions local and global, old and new to farmers both big and small • College honors 2011-2012 Distinguished Alumni and Outstanding Alumni • CALS alumna marks special anniversary as agriculture teacher

35 GIVING Donor generosity is the top story as CALS newsmakers are on display at 2011 donor Recognition Event • CES foundations announce new endowments • Troxler and Rouzer honored at joint foundations event

The Cover: Dr. Heather Patisaul is one of several featured CALS life scientists whose

Bringing

science to

research is making impacts locally and globally. (Story, page 2.) Photo by Roger Winstead

life winter 2012

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Becky Kirkland

science

Wikimedia Commons

Bringing to life

CALS life scientists are at the forefront in this era of biology.

by Dee Shore

tt’s an exciting time in the College o of Agriculture and Life Sciences, a time when researchers are rrapidly advancing our u understanding of plants, animals, peo pe o people and the world they live in – and a time when this knowledge is generating innovative solutions to some of the greatest challenges that face our state, nation and world.

Many of these solutions start with the life sciences – the disciplines that focus on such questions as what makes a flower grow, how bacteria develop resistance and what happens when people make changes in the natural world.

In CALS, life scientists work mainly in six departments — Biology, Genetics, Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Microbiology, Molecular and Structural Biochemistry, and Plant Biology. Some whose expertise lies in those disciplines are housed in what we refer to as the agricultural departments, working side-by-side with applied scientists who find ways to put discoveries to work for a robust economy, a sound

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environment and an improved quality of life.

CALS’ life science researchers pursue diverse subjects: They are at the forefront of activities that give us a better understanding of human aging and aggression, obesity and metabolism. They are generating the knowledge that could lead to vaccines against illnesses as diverse as Salmonella poisoning and HIV. And they are learning more about the impact people have on the natural world – and how to protect and enhance the environment upon which we all depend.

They are also helping raise the next generation of scientists by getting young people involved in hands-on biodiversity studies.

They are bringing their world-class expertise to the classroom as they teach and mentor undergraduate and graduate students who go into such fields as government and private industry research, human and veterinary medicine, fisheries and wildlife management – and so much more.

Here we bring you the stories of a few of our life sciences faculty members, along with a graduate of our life sciences curricula.

These scientists are studying how microbes break down spilled fuels and finding ways to develop cleaner-burning alternatives to the world’s diminishing supply of petroleum. They are looking at the effects of hormone-disrupting compounds. They are finding new ways to make vaccines and spinning off the kinds of companies – and jobs – that will bring these vaccines to market. And they are racing to help protect and enhance the food supply.

Together, they are bringing science to life – and, along the way, making the world a better place.

Designing jet fuels of the future

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Roger Winstead

sing micro-organisms able to its mass every 30 hours; because enough nitrogen is available. But in survive in some of the most it’s already being commercially this state, the algae don’t grow. extreme environments on Earth, produced for food for farm-raised Rather than inhibiting algae two CALS researchers are working salmon and shrimp; and because growth, Grunden and Sederoff to turn plants and algae into oilit has a cell membrane but no hope to trick the algae into producing factories efficient enough cell wall, which makes it easier to producing more oils by inserting to help solve the problem of the extract oils from the cells. synthetic genes derived from world’s diminishing petroleum While the engineers focus on lipid biosynthesis in the bacteria reserves. how to extract oils and convert Chromohalobacter salexigens. This Drs. Amy Grunden and Heike them into fuel that can be used bacterium is an extremophile Sederoff have spent the past two in place of conventional jet that, like Dunaliella, can grow in years working on high salt. The idea, ways to make the Grunden says, is microscopic marine that the algae won’t algae Dunaliella necessarily be able to produce more fatty turn off the bacterial acids that can be lipid synthesis genes. processed into fuels, “So what we and they recently won are trying to do is a grant to find ways actually put in a fatty to make camelina, an acid pathway from a oilseed crop, more high-salt bacteria to suitable for North try to force more of Carolina’s growing the carbon into lipid conditions. production,” she says.

With federal “So we are giving it, stimulus funding basically, an extra awarded through pathway to make the National Science lipids with.

Foundation, Grunden, “We hope they at associate professor least double the oil in the Department of production,” she says.

Microbiology, and “And if this works, I Sederoff (left) and Grunden look to extremophile genes to enhance oil production in marine algae and an oilseed crop.

Sederoff, an associate think that’s a realistic research professor in goal.” the Department of As Grunden and Plant Biology, have worked for fuels, plant biologist Dr. JoAnn Sederoff work to boost Dunaliella’s two years with collaborators in the Burkholder studies different oil production, they are also College of Engineering to find ways Dunaliella species to see which looking at ways to modify the algae to make Dunaliella an economically work best under various growth so that at the same time it produces viable biofuel source. conditions. oil, it can produce enzymes that Algae are seen as promising fuel At the same time, Grunden and can be used in industrial processes sources because they produce oil Sederoff are genetically modifying under certain conditions. Good quickly and can be grown in areas Dunaliella so that it turns more examples, they say, are enzymes unsuitable for agriculture. Marine sunlight and carbon dioxide into that work in laundry detergents to algae are of particular interest fatty acids. Algae produce oil remove oil stains in clothes washed because they grow in saltwater mostly when they are stressed – either in hot or cold water. and therefore won’t compete for when they have enough carbon A new North Carolina company, freshwater supplies so valuable dioxide and light but not enough AvJet Biotech Inc. of Pinehurst, to people, businesses and food nitrogen. has licensed the technology that production.

When algae are deprived of the scientists are developing. The The researchers chose to focus nitrogen, they store carbon in the company’s chief executive officer on Dunaliella because it can double form of oils that can be used when Don Evans calls the extremozymes

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Grunden and Sederoff are working on “high-value products which (can) contribute to increased productivity and product enhancement in many industries.”

Avjet Biotech has made promising contacts, he says, with two leading manufacturers who are interested in the developments.

Meanwhile, Grunden and Sederoff are just beginning a $3.7 million U.S. Department of Energy-funded project involving camelina. Once used to make lamp oil, this relative of canola is now seen as a promising biofuel feedstock.

“Camelina-derived jet fuel is liquid at cold temperatures, in contrast to ethanol,” Sederoff says, so the oilseed crop is considered a possible replacement for petroleum-based fuels used to power aircraft. The U.S. Air Force has successfully tested fuel from camelina in a jet, and the first transatlantic flight powered by a camelina-based biofuel took place last summer.

Growers in some northern states have begun producing camelina for biofuel, and one North Carolina grower, with the help of North Carolina Cooperative Extension, grew a winter crop last year. CALS scientists also tested the crop and included information about it at a May 2011 canola field day at the College’s Williamsdale Farm in Duplin County.

One of the things that makes camelina attractive, Sederoff says, is that it can grow on marginal soils and requires little water and little fertilizer. But it’s not as productive as corn, and it doesn’t do well in the kind of heat found in North Carolina, she adds.

Sederoff and Grunden hope to get around those drawbacks through genetic engineering. Camelina is a relative of Arabidopsis thaliana, which is one of the world’s

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most-studied plants and the first to have its entire genome sequenced.

It’s also used to understand genetic mechanisms in plants.

Grunden and Dr. Wendy Boss, a CALS plant biologist, previously showed that it was possible to transfer genes from the extremophile microbe Pyrococcus furiosus into Arabidopsis, making the plant better able to tolerate warmer temperatures. Grunden wants to try the same thing with camelina.

Meanwhile, Dr. Deyu Xie, a “Jet Camelina” team member and associate professor in the Department of Plant Biology, will focus on taking certain genes out of citrus and putting them into camelina so that the camelina can produce limonene. Limonene is a terpene, a class of chemicals needed in jet fuel

camelina; Xie will perform the metabolic analyses of the new camelina lines; Dr. Matt Veal from the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering will help improve and test production practices; and Dr. Kelly Zering from the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics will help determine what will make the crop profitable for farmers.

To convert the oil and terpenes extracted from camelina into jet fuel that can be used by the U.S. Air Force, the team includes Drs. Henry Lamb and William Roberts from the College of Engineering, who have developed new technologies for this process.

The team will also work with Avjet Biotech and with N.C. hog industry leaders who want to know

‘This project bridges the basic and applied sciences and is an example of what the College does best.’ – Amy Grunden production to prevent leaks in tank linings and engine gaskets.

Grunden and Sederoff are excited about the camelina project because it could help fill three important needs – the need for jet fuels that aren’t petroleum-based, the need for new markets for North Carolina farmers and the need for lower-cost animal feeds that will help the state’s large hog industry compete with the Midwest, where corn and other grains are more plentiful and less expensive.

They are working with faculty members from a number of CALS departments: Dr. Ron Qu from the Department of Crop Science will help generate the transgenic

if meal made with ground camelina – a byproduct of the oil extraction process – could become a lowercost alternative to current feed formulations.

“This project bridges the basic and applied sciences and is an example of what the College does best,” Grunden says. “We are really excited about the potential it has to not only make an economic impact here in North Carolina but also to address one of the biggest challenges that is currently facing the world – which is fuel production and the limits of existing petroleum.”

Cleaning up fuels of the past hile N.C. State University researchers work to create next-generation fuels, Dr. Michael Hyman examines the opposite of a fuel’s lifecycle, studying how microbes in the soil can degrade gasoline components.

And that work has important implications for cleaning up spills and protecting groundwater from contamination.

Hyman, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, has spent nearly a decade working to identify and learn more about the microbes that break down such chemicals as the gasoline additives methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) and tertiary butyl alcohol (TBA). These chemicals are called oxygenates, because they add oxygen to gasoline, making it burn better.

Now banned, MTBE came into use in the 1980s. Because of its branched chemical structure, it resists biodegradation and persists in the environment. MTBE is also highly water soluble, so once it gets into groundwater, it disperses and travels quickly, making cleanup difficult and expensive.

“Worldwide,” Hyman says, “the cleanup costs of sites contaminated by gasoline oxygenates are likely to be measured in the billions, rather than the millions, of dollars over the next decades.”

MTBE is an issue because it makes water taste bad and because, when it degrades, it frequently creates TBA, which poses its own set of environmental problems: “Like MTBE, it’s highly water soluble, and it’s thought to be more toxic to humans than MTBE,” he explains.

Hyman’s research has focused on finding out how TBA is

Becky Kirkland

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The research of microbiologist Michael Hyman (right) sheds light on better ways to clean fuel components from the environment.

produced, which soil-borne microorganisms can degrade it and how they do that. The scientist has also found that TBA is not just an MTBE byproduct, it also comes from other gasoline components containing isobutane.

“If our results with isobutane in gasoline also hold for isobutane in natural gas, our research suggests there are likely to be natural sources of TBA,” Hyman says. “And when you think about companies being sued when TBA contaminates groundwater, it’s a huge issue. What people assume comes from MTBE may well just be there because of a naturally occurring oxidation process.”

To help resolve that issue, Hyman and his colleagues are studying ways to pinpoint where the TBA comes from – whether it’s coming from MTBE, from other gasoline components or from

naturally occurring hydrocarbon seeps.

Hyman also consults frequently with environmental engineers and others involved in cleaning up MTBE and TBA. Understanding the physiology of the microorganisms that can degrade these chemicals can lead to better technologies to clean the chemicals from the environment, Hyman says.

“If you understand the physiology of a micro-organism – how they work, how they respond, what they do with particular chemicals – you can actually encourage them, through manipulation of their environment, to do what you want better, faster, cheaper,” Hyman says. “And for the bioremediation industry, that’s a great boon.”

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A TWO - WAY STREET

Dee Shore

CALS life sciences programs enhance government research efforts – and vice versa, says EPA branch chief Dr. Vickie Wilson.

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ust a few days after Vickie Wilson defended her Ph.D. dissertation in toxicology at N.C. State, she was conducting postdoctoral research at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, thanks to a cooperative training agreement that gives scientists-in-training more laboratory experience while providing the EPA with more research muscle.

The agreement is just one of the ways that CALS’ life sciences programs – research and academic – complement the work of government agencies at both the state and federal level.

Dr. Wilson, who graduated in 1999, has worked her way up to branch chief for reproductive toxicology in the EPA’s Toxicology Assessment Division. Based at Research Triangle Park, Wilson studies endocrine-disrupting compounds, which interfere with hormone systems and, as a result, can affect reproductive tissue development and reproductive fitness.

Used in medicines, pesticides, plastics and other products, these chemicals are found throughout the environment. Wilson began study-

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ing them while she was a graduate student in the lab of Dr. Gerald LeBlanc, now head of CALS’ Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology. For her dissertation project, she used mice to examine how pesticides affect testosterone clearance and thus the body’s hormone balance.

When she got to the EPA, she shifted her focus from working in model animals to in vitro work designed to isolate androgen and estrogen receptors in various species.

Before Wilson began that work, the EPA’s endocrine screening program was based solely on mammals, and the agency wanted to know more about how endocrine disruptors affect other animals.

Such research is important, Wilson says, when it comes to helping the federal agency meet its mandate of protecting human health and the environment.

Today, Wilson uses her expertise in cell-based assays and molecular biology to tackle complicated questions regarding endocrine disruptors, and she considers her ties to N.C. State an asset.

“Sometimes we go to individuals at N.C. State – especially in the toxicology department – for help with [research] methods and protocols,” she says. “If we know, for example, we have to do a particular assay and haven’t done it before, sometimes somebody at N.C. State

has done that and they are willing to help us.

“We’ve also had instances where we’ve sent a trainee down to work in somebody’s lab at N.C. State for a week or two – and vice versa,” she adds. “N.C. State has students who come out here sometimes to learn how to do a particular assay.

So it’s a two-way street.”

In addition, through the training agreement, N.C. State undergraduate and graduate students can apply to work in some of the agency’s RTP laboratories. The agreement also places N.C. State postdoctoral trainees in EPA laboratories.

Wilson now has two people from CALS working in her lab – one is an undergraduate student, and the other is a postdoc.

Wilson says the cooperative training program is mutually beneficial: Having well-prepared students from N.C. State working in EPA labs can help speed the pace of research and, at the same time, gives N.C. State trainees the chance to learn from seasoned scientists.

“For those who are unsure what they want to do in a career, this gives them the opportunity to get in a lab and see what goes on day to day,” Wilson says. And she can say that with confidence because it’s exactly what happened in her case.

“I wouldn’t have this career if it weren’t for N.C. State,” she says.

“It was the excellent training and education that I had at N.C. State that got me here.”

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anmade chemicals have become nearly ubiquitous. Used as solvents, medicines, pesticides, flame retardants, container materials and much more, they are found in the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. But are they safe?

It’s a big, complicated question with implications for human health, the environment and the economy.

And it’s a question that many CALS life scientists are addressing. One of them is Dr. Heather Patisaul, an assistant professor of biology whose studies focus on finding out more about how hormones in early fetal and neonatal development create differences in male and female brain circuits and behaviors.

Patisaul is particularly interested in whether exposure to modern synthetic estrogens alters those sex differences – and if so, how and when these changes take place.

Her research has found that one chemical – Bisphenol A, or BPA – could be cause for concern.

Worldwide, millions of tons of BPA are produced each year to make a range of products – from water bottles to eyeglasses to linings for food and beverage cans.

Traces of BPA can be found in the blood and urine of nearly every person in the United States, Patisaul says, and there’s intense debate over whether the rise in its use is responsible for a number of disturbing trends related to human reproduction.

Through research conducted in rats, Patisaul has found that females exposed to low doses in the first four days of life experienced early onset of puberty. The rats went on to develop cyst-like growths in their ovaries, became obese and prematurely lost their estrous cycle – equivalent to a woman’s menstrual cycle.

In male rats exposed to BPA, Patisaul has seen behavioral changes: They are more anxious and less likely to take such risks as spending time in a well-lit maze (rats prefer the dark) or walking along planks that don’t have sides.

Now Patisaul is attempting to find out precisely Neurobiologist Healther Patisaul studies the reproductive effects of manmade chemicals. what happens in the body that leads to those behavioral and physshe says, “so that’s what we are ical changes. looking at right now.”

“We suspect that endocrine Meanwhile, Patisaul is in the disruptors like BPA are contributbeginning stages of a grant-funded ing to adverse health outcomes in project with the U.S. Food and humans, but we have to pin down Drug Administration. With the goal the mechanisms if we are really goof building a BPA risk assessment ing to make a good case,” she says. for humans, the FDA has been col“We want to find out what the orilecting data on the growth and degins of all those different outcomes velopment of rats exposed to BPA are and to try to understand what from birth until adulthood. got perturbed in development that Previously, using samples of leads to these outcomes. rat brains from the FDA study, “After all, a rat is not a little girl,” Patisaul and her colleagues used she says. “But we know that the age of radioactive tags to characterize onset of puberty in girls in the United differences in estrogen receptors States is dropping. … It can be as in the developing brains of male young as the first or second grade. So and female rats. Next, they will be we have to understand if what’s drivexpanding that study to see what ing early puberty in the rat is potenhappens if they study more animals tially something that could be driving and use different levels of BPA. puberty in a little girl.”

“This study has real implications Because the major changes she for human health, because the data has seen with Bisphenol A are rewill be used by FDA and other reglated to reproduction and energy ulatory agencies to make decisions balance, Patisaul is eyeing a group about how these chemicals can be of proteins, the RFamide peptides, used,” Patisaul says. which regulate gonadotropin secreDr. Sherry Ferguson, of the FDA’s tion and are associated with reproNational Center for Toxicological duction and energy balance.

Research, praised Patisaul’s research, “We think maybe the developnoting that “she has the insight, moment of this neural system could be tivation and enthusiasm to provide altered by early exposure to BPA,” important data in this area.”

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Roger Winstead

Thoroughly modern maladies

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Taking a bite out of mosquito-borne viruses

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he mosquito-borne virus that causes an estimated 300 million dengue fever infections each year is considered one of the world’s biggest health threats. But thanks to a discovery by CALS biochemists, a promising vaccine is in the pipeline.

Arbovax, a small biotechnology company in Raleigh, is using the discovery to develop vaccines against dengue and other viral infections that insects transmit to people. So far, tests of the dengue vaccine in rodents and primates have proved promising.

The so-called host-range mutation technology that Arbovax uses was the direct – but surprising – result of research conducted

by Drs. Dennis Brown and Raquel Hernandez, a husband-and-wife research team in the Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry. Brown is department head, and Hernandez is a research associate professor.

“Never in a million years did I think I’d be developing vaccines,” Brown recalls.

What he and Hernandez were doing was much more basic: They were creating a three-dimensional, atom-by-atom image of the Sindbis virus’ structure.

The goal wasn’t to prevent disease — after all, Sindbis doesn’t even cause human illness. Instead, the researchers wanted to better understand how Sindbis’ structure influences the way the virus infects both insects and mammals.

To study the way the virus’ proteins interacted, Hernandez removed a certain piece of protein. And what she and her husband found next surprised them: The resulting mutant survived in animal cells, but it didn’t reproduce rapidly the way a normal virus would. And in insect cells, the mutant reproduced at the same rate as the wild virus.

“It became suddenly obvious,” Brown says, that the mutant could

Marc Hall

“The impact of her work is already beginning,” Ferguson says.

“Her basic science work has led others to examine the adverse effects of other chemicals on (reproductive) systems.”

While Patisaul continues her BPA research, she is also looking at other chemicals, including flame retardants. Through such studies, she hopes to enrich our understanding of how the reproductive system develops and how exposure to chemicals very early in life affects that development.

That’s important, she says, because there’s growing evidence that what happens very early in life – even in the womb – can set the stage for adult diseases and fertility.

Patisaul also hopes to contribute to the kind of understanding that regulatory agencies need to set informed public policy and that consumers can use to make wise choices about the products they buy and how they use them. She talks frequently to the news media – she was in TIME magazine in the fall — to raise awareness about endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and she teaches a course on the fetal bases of adult diseases.

“These students are going to become tomorrow’s physicians and chemists and business people.

Their generation is going to have to be more thoughtful about this and work to solve these problems, and they need sound science to do that,” she says.

“It’s absolutely definitive now that we have a soup of chemicals in our bodies. They are in our fat, our blood, our urine, our breast milk.

They are everywhere. We need to get a grasp on what they might be doing once they get inside of us,” Patisaul concludes. “It’s really important to know if these chemicals are harmful – or innocuous. If they are innocuous, we need to quit worrying about them. And if they are harmful, we need to make decisions about what we are going to do about that.”

The discovery by Brown (right) and Hernandez has spawned a company creating vaccines against global health threats.

pave the way to vaccines for hundreds of disease-causing viruses that are spread by mosquitoes.

What Brown and Hernandez realized was that viruses missing the protein segment could be grown in low-cost insect cell reactors and, when injected as a vaccine into mammals, could impart immunity to the wild viruses without reproducing enough to trigger illness.

What’s more, the fact that the virus had a missing protein segment reduced the risk that the viruses would be able to revert to the infectious version.

Laboratory tests and trials in mice and monkeys have proved the couple’s idea works in the case of the virus that causes dengue fever. Arbovax’s founders chose to focus on dengue when they incorporated in 2005, because dengue is considered a growing health threat not just to the developing world but to the United States, says Malcolm Thomas, the company’s president and chief executive officer.

The World Health Organization estimates that the incidence of dengue disease has risen 30-fold in the past 50 years, and it has cropped up in recent years in the southern United States. Some scientists say that without an effective vaccine,

Solving molecular mysteries Hanley-Bowdoin focuses on tiny subviral particles to address big food production problems.

Becky Kirkland

the virus will continue to spread.

Arbovax will take testing of Brown and Hernandez’s technology to the next stage in early 2012.

That’s when, Thomas says, the company will see if the technology works in non-human primates against all four virus subtypes that cause dengue fever.

If those tests go well, Thomas adds, the company will begin earlystage clinical trials in humans in 2013. Along the way, he’ll be looking for a pharmaceutical company willing to work with Arbovax to conduct late-stage clinical trials and then to manufacture and market the vaccine.

Meanwhile, Arbovax is banking on the fact that the vaccine technology can be applied not only to dengue but also to Chickungunya fever and possibly other insect-borne viruses that cause serious human diseases.

Work toward a vaccine for Chickungunya, a painful and potentially crippling illness found mainly in Africa and Asia, is taking place now and is expected to move quickly — in part because the virus that causes it is in the same family as Sindbis, and also because it has no subtypes, Thomas says.

Brown, who contracted a severe laboratory case of dengue fever years ago, knows firsthand of the need for research into potential vaccines into insect-borne diseases.

He says it’s been rewarding to know that the virology and biochemistry research he and his wife have done for decades could dramatically lessen the toll that these diseases take each year.

While it would be impossible to predict how Arbovax’s trials will play out, Thomas is optimistic about his company’s chances of bringing a dengue vaccine to market. “My feeling is, it’s worked so well so far – so much better than other approaches – we feel extremely confident that this is going to work.”

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ver the years he’s spent studying cassava mosaic disease, Tanzanian scientist Dr. Joseph Ndunguru has noted something curious: Wherever there are DNA molecules called satellites associated with the geminiviruses contributing to the disease, symptoms are greater and losses are heavier – even in plants bred specifically to resist the disease.

Figuring out more about those subviral particles could be key, Ndunguru believes, to developing a strategy to beat the disease for good. That’s why he has teamed with CALS’ Dr. Linda HanleyBowdoin on a project designed to yield the scientific insight necessary to do just that.

The project recently won a three-year grant from the Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development program. Supported

by the National Science Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the program funds collaborative work to generate sustainable, science-based solutions to agricultural problems in developing countries.

And the problems posed by cassava mosaic disease are significant, explains Hanley-Bowdoin, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry, Genetics and Plant Biology.

“Cassava is the No. 3 source of calories in Africa after maize and rice,” she says. “Also, cassava will grow under a variety of less-thanideal conditions – and a lot of African agriculture is on the margins, as far as the quality of the soil, the high temperatures and the amount of water that’s available – so it gives subsistence farmers and families a source of calories in places where other crops just can’t be produced.”

But there is a drawback: Cassava is highly susceptible to viral diseases, and the disease pressure associated with geminiviruses has been mounting. When Hanley-Bowdoin started studying these DNA viruses

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interaction, to understand mechanisms of disease development in cassava and … to form a base on which to formulate effective and sustainable disease control measures.”

And that, he adds, will likely “have a huge impact to the cassava farmers and scientists at large.”

While the project’s benefit to African agriculture is obvious, the benefit to the United States is less direct – but perhaps no less important. While geminivirus

Becky Kirkland

combat geminivirus disease in the presence of these satellites.”

As part of the grant-funded project, Hanley-Bowdoin and her colleagues at N.C. State will be making genetic variations of the satellites and testing them in the model plant Arabidopsis. What happens as a result should give the researchers clues as to how the satellites work.

“The model work will go quickly, and what it will allow us to do is rule out some possibilities and to

Hanley-Bowdoin, shown here in her lab, has teamed with Tanzanian scientist Dr. Joseph Ndunguru on a project to research cassava mosaic disease.

focus the cassava research, which will be done in Africa, on what we think is most likely going on,” Hanley-Bowdoin adds.

Ndunguru will not only be testing the variants in cassava, he will also be looking along with fellow African scientist Peter Sseruwagi at how the satellites are transmitted – whether through the plant genome or the white fly vector.

Knowing these things will ultimately help plant breeders develop varieties that are useful for the long haul, Ndunguru says.

“The project,” he says, “will generate information that will help us to understand the virus-satellite

diseases don’t cause many problems in North America today, that doesn’t mean they won’t. So the work Hanley-Bowdoin is doing now could possibly be applied here in years to come.

Furthermore, she says, addressing global food security issues is an important defense issue. After all, famine leads frequently to unrest and sometimes to war.

“My personal philosophy is we can invest in helping people produce enough food for themselves so they can stay healthy, or we can invest in defense,” she says. “And I’d much rather be involved in the former.”

in the 1980s, scientists knew about only a handful of species. Today, there are more than 200 species – plus 600 or 700 isolates—affecting all kinds of crops, particularly in tropical countries where the insect vectors, which spread these viruses, are present year-round.

Cassava has been particularly hard hit. In one recent year, farmers in Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi lost 4 million tons of the crop to cassava mosaic disease.

Ndunguru believes that understanding more about the satellites found along with the viruses will be key in developing cassava varieties that will retain long-term resistance to the disease. Viral satellites are not infectious by themselves, but the molecules can enhance plant disease – and thus result in greater crop loss – when they act in the presence of viruses.

It was Ndunguru, a scientist with the Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute in Dar es Salaam, who first identified geminivirus satellites in cassava mosaic disease.

Since then, he’s had several questions about the satellites that he couldn’t answer.

“The questions,” he says, “needed someone like Linda to help in figuring them out.”

The geminivirus satellites in African cassava piqued HanleyBowdoin’s curiosity because they are unlike geminivirus satellites seen in other crops and in other places. Scientists have found that some of the satellites work by turning off the genes in plants that defend against the virus, but that doesn’t appear to be the case with the satellites associated with cassava mosaic disease, she says.

“We do not know what these satellites do,” Hanley-Bowdoin says.

“The project focuses on figuring out how they work: How are they replicated? What product do they make that enhances disease? And how are they transmitted?

“We need that information in order to start to devise strategies to

Becky Kirkland

FOUNDATIONS for

Intervention Reducing foodborne

illness is goal of CALS microbiologist’s research.

by Dee Shore

Dr. Sophia Kathariou (right) works with Dr. Sangmi Lee (left) and Shakir Ratani in her studies of Listeria and Campylobacter.

E

ach year, foodborne microbes make millions sick, lead to hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and kill more than 3,000 people in the United States alone. In her Schaub Hall laboratory, N.C. State University’s Dr. Sophia Kathariou works to reduce that toll by unraveling the molecular mysteries of two particularly problematic pathogens.

The bacteria Listeria monocytogenes and Campylobacter jejuni act in distinctly different ways – ways that have intrigued Kathariou, a professor in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences, for more than 25 years.

Her objective: getting to know the bacteria in ways that lay the foundation for interventions that lower or eliminate their ability to contaminate food and infect people. Using molecular epidemiologic tools and genetic, physiologic and pathogenesis approaches, she identifies and characterizes bacterial lineages that are especially relevant to food safety.

A native of Greece, Kathariou has researched Listeria since she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Würzburg in Germany. The bacteria, she explains, can be found in raw foods such as uncooked meats. They are also found in soil and water, and once they get into food processing plants, they can persist there for years.

Heat kills Listeria, so it doesn’t survive cooking. But, Kathariou says, ready-to-eat foods such as deli meats, smoked seafood and soft cheeses made with unpasteurized milk can become contaminated between the time they are cooked and packaged, if the bacterium is present in the plant.

When Listeria winds up in the food supply, it can cause a rare but potentially deadly illness called listeriosis. It can start with mild flulike symptoms or gastrointestinal symptoms such as diarrhea, but it spreads to other parts of the body, including the blood and brain. In a pregnant woman, it can cross the placenta and infect the fetus, which can lead to miscarriages, stillbirths and seriously ill infants.

While listeriosis infects only some 1,600 people in the nation annually, about 260 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Listeria is “full of surprises,” Kathariou says. Recently a large outbreak – more than 120 cases and 25 deaths – was linked to cantaloupes, a food that had never before been associated with an outbreak.

Finding out how Listeria contaminates processing plants could be key to reducing the incidence of listeriosis as well as the economic losses that occur when food is recalled. So that’s one winter 2012

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Kathariou began investigating Listeria as a postdoctoral researcher in Germany.

Kathariou and her colleagues share that information with collaborators who use animal and cell culture models to determine if such changes affect listeria’s ability to cause human disease.

Such research is important to state and national public health officials working to resolve outbreaks of foodborne illnesses. Dr. Leslie A. Wolf, laboratory director for the N.C. State Laboratory of Public Health – turned to Kathariou for help in developing a molecular method to determine subtypes of Listeria monocytogenes.

“In public health, we are concerned with the molecular epidemiology of these bacteria to help resolve foodborne outbreaks and identify sources of transmission of foodborne pathogens,” Wolf says.

“Having foundational understanding of the evolution of these pathogens is important background information to understanding sources of outbreaks and developing prevention strategies.”

While Kathariou is generating a greater understanding of listeria, she’s also expanding our knowledge of Campylobacter. This bacterium causes many more human infections than does listeria – in fact, it is one of the most common causes of diarrheal illness in the United States –

but it results in fewer deaths.

Still, says Kathariou, campylobacteriosis is significant not only because of the acute gastroenteritis it causes but also because in about one in 1,000 cases it leads to the severe Guillain-Barré syndrome, which can lead to neuromuscular paralysis and sometimes result in lifelong disabilities. Other infectious agents can lead to GBS, but Campylobacter infection is the most common antecedent, she says.

Most cases of campylobacteriosis result from eating raw or undercooked poultry or from cross-contamination of other foods by these items. But the bacteria are found in all animals that people raise for food and can also contaminate milk and water.

For Campylobacter, Kathariou explores such questions as how did virulent strains evolve, how have they adapted to different animal hosts, what makes the bacteria so susceptible to dehydration, which genes make it resistant to antibiotics and what kinds of genes does it need to be able to colonize poultry flocks.

“When animals are infected, we have no easy way of knowing that because the animals typically won’t have symptoms. But even though they do not result in symptoms that we can see, these bacteria are living and growing and the bird does respond to them,” she says. “So we are trying to understand that process, because if we did that, it might give us a new set of interventions to prevent colonization of the birds. And if we could reduce colonization of the birds before they are killed, it would go a long way to reducing illness.”

And reducing illness is, bottom line, what Kathariou’s studies are all about.

“When we work with bacteria that cause diseases, we do so with the goal of finding ways to reduce the public health burden,” Kathariou says, “because at the end of the day, we would like to be able to say that we’ve made a difference, for the better.”

Becky Kirkland

of the main focus areas of research conducted by Kathariou, her lab manager Robin Siletzky and visiting scientists and students who come from around the world to work in the lab.

They are looking, for example, at the molecular basis that underlies listeria’s persistence, its cold and freeze tolerance and its ability to form tight-knit microbial communities known as biofilms. They also have made headway in understanding how the bacteria evolve to resist viruses and heavy metals and to survive disinfectants that are routinely used in processing plants to get rid of pathogens.

“Some of those organisms have high levels of resistance to the quaternary ammonium compounds that are used extensively in processing as disinfectants,” Kathariou says.

“We are trying to see how they do that, and it appears there is more than one way. For example, if they get exposed to the disinfectant, they can pump it out; that’s called an efflux mechanism,” she adds. “And the other way is they can have specific genes dedicated to detoxifying that disinfectant – genes that they have picked up from another type of bacterium.

“It seems that someplace in the processing plant or perhaps in the sewage – wherever disinfectants were present and other bacteria were present – they picked up from another organism a piece of DNA that they can now use to withstand disinfectant.”

One of the visiting scientists in Kathariou’s lab, Mira Rakic-Martinez, recently looked at what happens when Listeria becomes resistant to disinfectants, and she found that the bacteria also become more resistant to toxic dyes and to antibiotics.

“And she found it the other way around, too: When you treat something with an antibiotic and it becomes more tolerant to the antibiotic, it also becomes more tolerant to disinfectant,” Kathariou says.

Once they’ve characterized traits such as these at the genetic level,

Healthy

by Terri Leith

CALS C ALSS graduate g student Amanda Draut and fellow Ka ann Kannapolis Scholars host conference to improve ccommunication o about childhood obesity.

Photos by Becky Kirkland

Kannapolis Scholar Amanda Draut

.C. State University graduate student Amanda Draut has made great strides toward the career she describes as “a food product developer with a nutritional spin,” since she arrived at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She entered the master’s degree program in the CALS Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences (FBNS) two years ago with a goal of learning “how to deliver nutritionally beneficial food products that taste delicious to the people that need them,” she says. It was in this pursuit that she became a student in Dr. Keith Harris’ nutraceuticals and

functional food course, which led to her position coordinating the Kannapolis Scholars Program at the North Carolina Research Campus.

That position gave Draut many leadership opportunities, one of which has been her role in organizing “Lost in Translation: A Conversation in Childhood Obesity,” a day-long conference held this past summer.

“The Kannapolis Scholars Program brings a group of graduate students together who are studying fields related to food and health from a pool of eight different universities,” Draut explains. “Students spend two summers at the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, participating in activities such as personality inventories, journal clubs, seminars and a collaborative effort to organize a final program conference all while benefitting from the amazing laboratories located there to do research towards their master’s or doctorate. The purpose of the program is to train students from a transdisciplinary perspective, meaning that they have an in-depth knowledge of their area of interest, but they also encounter other

disciplines that can be incorporated into their thought process as they encounter research problems.”

Of the 13 scholars who have participated in the program, there have been majors as varied as nutritional biochemistry, psychology, horticulture, animal science and bioinformatics, Draut adds.

Among participants are her fellow N.C. State students Christine Bradish, a member of the first group of Kannapolis Scholars and CALS master’s student in horticultural science, and second-year Kannapolis Scholar Josie Drayton, a CALS master’s student in animal science.

“These students can deeply benefit from discussing their research projects with one another and learning through these interactions,” says Draut. “The hope is that these interactions will make them more creative and have more perspective when thinking about complex issues related to food and health.”

Part of the requirement of the students in the Kannapolis Scholars Program is that they work on a collaborative group project during their second summer in Kannapolis, she says. “This turned into a final conference that would highlight the transdisciplinary nature of the program.”

The group chose childhood obesity as the topic, because it involved the best common thread among the scholars in the first class, Draut says. winter 2012

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Becky Kirkland

N.C. Research Campus and the community.”

The conference, which was available for attendance in person and via webinar, drew more than 80 in-person and more than 160 online participants, including some international webinar participation.

Among conference attendees were teachers, physicians and nurses, along with representatives from academia, local school boards and local, state and federal government.

The Kannapolis Scholars program perfectly complements Draut’s N.C. State studies, which began directly after she finished her undergraduate degree in the University of Tennessee’s Food Science and Technology program.

Draut, a Cincinnati, Ohio, native, says she chose N.C. State because the university’s FBNS Department “is one of the best in the country, highlighted by the combination of food science, nutrition and bioprocessing into one department and by its strong Food Science Club involvement.”

Then when Harris presented the idea of coordinating the Kannapolis Scholars Program, she says, “I found myself at the beginning of a wonderful opportunity.”

It’s been a busy opportunity, too, she says. “In the beginning, I contributed to the development of two different websites, including one for the public and one Moodle [e-learning software platform] website for the scholars to use for assignments. I also contributed to the creation of assignments and program assessments for the scholars. During the past two summers, I was able to live in Kannapolis to assist with any housing issues, to run a journal club, to facilitate seminars given by researchers on the campus, to keep track of the scholars’ assignments via the Moodle website and to report some of the results that we are seeing.”

And of course, this past summer, she helped plan and execute the “Lost in Translation” conference

Draut calls the Kannapolis Scholars Program a “wonderful opportunity.”

organized by the first class of Kannapolis Scholars.

That first class has been very positive about the Kannapolis Scholars program, Draut says.

Among the perks they mentioned are the new collaborations made, access to cutting edge laboratory equipment, opportunity to work with leading researchers in their fields and the ability to have had a different kind of experience than their fellow graduate students might have.

“Students also enjoyed the seminar series, where a different researcher who was connected to the campus would discuss his or her work. They felt that this really bridged the N.C. Research Campus and allowed them to better understand the other fields represented in the group,” she says. “Many of the students have indicated that they forged new collaborations and added new ideas and techniques to their research based on their interactions while in the Kannapolis Scholars Program.”

The program next continues into its third year, with a returning group of scholars.

As for the title “Lost in Translation,” she says, “There are plenty of conferences about the topic of childhood obesity, but we really wanted ours to be about the communication breakdown between the groups who create the research, who relay that information to people, who decide laws and regulations and who deal with the issue of childhood obesity first-hand.

“There is plenty of information about how to correct childhood obesity, but we still have almost 18 percent of children who are obese.

This points to the idea that the collective group who thinks about and deals with childhood obesity — including academia, government, and stakeholders such as doctors, parents and teachers — is not communicating effectively enough and is not understanding each other’s needs. We really wanted to give these groups a platform on which this communication could be improved.”

Draut says the conference came about due to “a huge effort by the planning committee,” including Dr. Jack Odle, CALS professor of animal science and director of the Kannapolis Scholars Program, and Harris, FBNS assistant professor and member of the Kannapolis Scholars Program planning committee.

“The conference planning was truly driven by the first class of Kannapolis Scholars, including Christine Bradish of N.C. State; Dan Cooper, doctoral student in nutrition at UNC-Chapel Hill; Krista Kennerly, master’s student in biology at Appalachian State University; Kyle Suttlemyre, master’s student in bioinformatics and genomics at UNC-Charlotte; Christa Watson, doctoral student in energy and environmental systems at N.C. A&T State University; Kelly Will, doctoral student in psychology at UNC-CH, and me,” says Draut. “In addition, we of course had tremendous support from the

Photos by Becky Kirkland

It’s Muscadine Time!

A grape smoothie is just one of many products with powerful potential, thanks to a CALS partnership with muscadine growers.

By Suzanne Stanard

W

hen Dr. Keith Harris and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alumnus Whit Jones first crossed paths two years ago, the meeting was anything but ordinary.

Harris, CALS assistant professor of food, bioprocessing and nutrition sciences, and Jones, a 1982 horticultural science graduate and retired Extension agent, had gathered with other scientists, as well as Jones’ business partner and 1987 CALS horticulture alumnus Ron Cottle of Cottle Farms in Faison, to discuss the potential for a new family of muscadine products.

“We were talking, and before I knew it, Whit got out a really highhorsepower blender and proceeded to make smoothies out of whole grapes,” Harris said. “I thought it would taste bitter, but I was pleasantly surprised that when you blend the entire grape, it’s actually very good.”

According to Harris, Jones simply replied, “I know.”

Before retiring from his post in Cooperative Extension, Jones discovered that powdered muscadine nutritional supplements were very effective in relieving his muscle and joint pain.

“After that, I knew that the chemicals in the seeds and skin worked,” he said. “So I had the idea to take the whole grape and grind it down, seed and skin and all. I’d like to transform the way people consume muscadines.”

Jones got his hands on a very powerful blender that could pulverize an entire frozen grape. So he froze 250 pounds of grapes from a local grower’s muscadine harvest in late 2009 to test the idea of a muscadine smoothie.

“When I grind these fresh grapes, most people say they like them,” he said. “And they can’t believe that all I’m doing is blending them with water. There is no sugar, nothing else added.”

Muscadines boast high antioxidant properties and have been dubbed a super-food in fighting

cancers, diabetes and inflammation. They’re also very high in protein and fiber.

“It’s the perfect food,” Jones said of his smoothie. “It has all of these incredible nutritional benefits and tastes good.”

His crusade to develop a muscadine smoothie gaining steam, Jones turned to Harris for help in early 2010.

After their initial meeting, Harris and his team began brainstorming ways to get the product from farm to market.

“As food scientists, we have to think about everything from how to store the fruit after harvest to the best way to process it into something useful,” Harris said. “Food science is essentially food business.

After processing, we also have to investigate packaging, shelf stability, how long the nutrients stick around, the venue for the package and the audience.”

In fall 2011, Jones’ dream became a reality, in the form of a

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Whit Jones (inset, left) concocts a muscadine smoothie. The shelf-stable bottled smoothie (below) is called “Muscadine Time.”

shelf-stable bottled smoothie called Muscadine Time.

Success has been steadily coming.

Cottle Farms harvested their first muscadines in 2011, and volume should increase substantially over the next two years, Jones said. He and Cottle have contracted with U.S. Foodservice to distribute whole, frozen muscadines to Port City Java, and they’ve partnered with a Canadian grocery chain to sell fresh muscadine grapes in 2012. Jones also has met with representatives from the Carolina Panthers football team, who have expressed interest in incorporating frozen muscadine grapes into the team’s diet next year.

Cottle Farms soon will begin operating its own bottling line in Duplin County. Other muscadine products such as popsicles, ice cream, pie filling and baby food will be investigated in the future, Jones said.

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Jones praised Harris as “a crucial link in the chain.”

Harris and his team specialize in understanding the health-related properties of foods, and they also examine how processing affects the product, considering everything from appearance to nutrient retention.

“There is a tendency to believe that processing is 100 percent negative in terms of its effect on nutrients,” Harris said. “That’s not always the case. In some instances,

Whit Jones (left), Amanda Draut, Keith Harris, Sanja Cvitkusic and Ron Cottle gather at Cottle Farms. (Background) The group walks through the Cottle vineyard.

Muscadine pie filling (below) and ice cream (right) are two tempting products made with the grape.

Anot Anot An o her her of he of H arri ar arri ris’ is’ s’ m aste as terr’’s te ter’ Another Harris’ master’s stud st ud uden den nts ts, Sa ts, S Sanj anj nja ja Cvitkusic, Cv C vittku kusi sic, c, iiss co onnstudents, Sanja conduct duct du c in ng a hu huma man ma n ccl lin nical icall ttrial ic rial ri ial al eexxxducting human clinical a in am iniin ng the th he ef eeffects fect fe ctss of of m ussccaadi u din neeess amining muscadines n blood blo loo od d sugar sug ugar ar ccontrol ar ontr on ttrro oll iin n no n rrm mal on normal veerrssus sus u overweight ove verw rw weiigh g t indi in ndi divi v du dual dual a s. s. versus individuals.

“S “San San anja ja’s ja ’ss study stu t dy dy rrepresents ep pre r se sent nts an nothe otthe herr “Sanja’s another way of o llooking ooki oo kiing king g aatt th his o veera v rall ll eeffect fffeecct ffec way this overall o the the product pro rodu duct du ct o n hu huma man ma n he eal alth th h… of on human health an nd a much much more mu mor oree important im mpo port r an rt antt way, way, and beca be eca cau usse it iinvolves nvol nv nvol olve ves re ves real aall p eo opl p e, e,” because people,” Harr Ha rris rr i said. is sai aid. d.

Harris

processing pr roc ocessi esssiing ng aactually ctua ctua ct ualllly ca uall can an im improve mpr prov o e th ov tthe he bo body ody d ’’ss aability bility bili bi lity li t tto o ac aaccess cce c ssss n uttri u triien ents ts.”” ts body’s nutrients.”

O On of H arri ar ris’ s’ m s’ asste ter’ r’s st r’ stu tud udeen uden nts, tss, Onee of Harris’ master’s students, A Am Aman man nda da D raautt, is is cconducting ondu ondu on duct duct ctin ingg re in eAmanda Draut, rese ear arch cch h on on the th he affect afffe affe fect c o ct micr icr crow ow o wav ave search off mi microwave p pr oces oc oces e siing go n nu nutr trie tr ieen ient ntt rretention eten et enti tion ti ion on iin n processing on nutrient m mu sccad scad adin din ne pu p urees reeeess. muscadine purees.

“T Thr hrou o gh ou gh A m nd ma daa’’s wo ork rk,, “Through Amanda’s work, we’v we ’v ve fo foun und un nd th that at m any off tthe an he n he uttri riwe’ve found many nutrieents en ts iin n mu musc sccad adin inee ggr in rap pes e sstand t nd u ta p muscadine grapes up very ve ry yw ell tto el o eeven ven ve n ve v ry h arsh ar sh hh eaat well very harsh heat p pr occes oces essi sing si ng,” ng ,” H ,” arri ar rri ris sa said id.. id processing,” Harris said.

All of the grapes used in both Draut’s and Cvitkusic’s studies h have come from Cottle Farms.

The researchers are just beginning to examine the product’s effect on athletic performance and its ability to help the body recover from exertion.

The bottom line on these projects, Harris said, is simple: help the g growers.

“To be intimately involved in this process and see it evolve from an idea to a product on a store shelf is very cool,” Harris said.

“We want to be sure that everything we do is benefitting farmers,” he said. “Our role is as adviser to them, to make sure that at each step of the process we’re guiding farmers or producers the right way.

That’s the purpose of the landgrant mission, to benefit the state of North Carolina. That’s why we’re here.”

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FRESH OFF THE BENCH Eager instructors, ‘cool courses’ and the very latest from the lab are the benefits of the Biotechnology Program’s unique teaching postdoctoral fellowship.

Becky Kirkland

by Terri Leith

Teaching postdoc Dr. Heather Miller developed and piloted a biotech course for non-science majors.

W

hen Dr. Heather Miller was a Duke graduate student pursuing her Ph.D. in molecular genetics and microbiology, she discovered that while she enjoyed research, the teaching of science also was extremely rewarding.

That joy in teaching is what led her to a unique postdoctoral program at N.C. State University, where Miller now is a teaching postdoctoral associate in the Biotechnology Program. Dr. Sue Carson, professor of plant biology in the College of Agriculture

and Life Sciences and academic coordinator of the Biotechnology Program, together with Biotechnology Program director Dr. Bob Kelly, developed the teaching postdoc program.

Carson leads the program and mentors postdoctoral fellows.

It’s a relatively new concept, Carson said, and one that “has

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been hugely successful for us in terms of great teaching, publications and postdocs being placed in faculty positions at other institutions” – along with being a kind of incubator for the development of new courses.

The teaching postdocs program is geared toward individuals who may have done a research postdoc

already or may be straight out of graduate school, and who are interested in mainly a college-level teaching career, focused on undergraduate education, Carson said.

And there was an advantage in bringing in teachers straight out of the research lab, “because the biotech program is always trying to have new innovative classes with cutting-edge techniques,” she said.

“It’s a win-win situation because these are people who are exceptional researchers who can bring in the latest technology and develop new upper-level lab courses for us.

But at the same time they’re winning because they’re gaining the teaching experience and mentorship in teaching.”

Miller concurs with that assessment. “Students in the courses benefit from having an instructor

by students in many areas of science and engineering, whereas this course will be open to students in any major. It is also a First Year Inquiry (FYI) class, so it is limited to freshmen.”

Said Carson, “It is a rare opportunity for a non-science major to get hands-on biotech lab experience.”

Dr. Chris Ashwell, CALS associate professor of animal genomics in poultry science, taught the course during the Fall 2011 semester, and then Miller and Srougi are teaching it in Spring 2012.

Miller’s goals for the course include the students gaining “a better understanding of the roles biotechnology plays in everyday life,” she said. “We’ll discuss current issues in class; however, we will also apply molecular biotechnology techniques in the laboratory. This is a great opportunity for students who don’t want a ‘dry’ science class and want to get experience designing, conducting and interpreting real experiments.”

Heather Miller, along with Scott Witherow, served as co-author with Carson on Molecular Biology Techniques: A Classroom Laboratory

Becky Kirkland

with knowledge of cutting-edge techniques and recent bench experience,” she said. “Additionally, the postdoc benefits from having completely hands-on pedagogical experiences — and freedom to design a new course at an early point in his or her career.”

The program began with one postdoc and then expanded to two, Carson said, “and we recently got permission to begin to have three, so we’re actually right now doing a nationwide search for the third postdoc.” In addition to current teaching postdoc Miller and the newest fellow, Dr. Melissa Srougi, the program has included Dr. Lisa Lyford, Dr. Joanna Miller and Dr. Scott Witherow.

And while taking part in the program, these enthusiastic and highly motivated teaching postdocs have developed some “cool new courses,” Carson said.

Among those are the BIT 100 course, “Current Topics in Biotechnology,” that Heather Miller developed and piloted last summer. “BIT 100 is the Biotechnology Program’s first course geared toward non-science majors,” Miller said. “Our other courses are taken

Dr. Sue Carson (center) confers with Miller and newest postdoctoral fellow Dr. Melissa Srougi (right).

Manual, Third Edition (Academic Press). And Miller also has developed a new upper-level lab course on mRNA transcription and processing, Carson noted. “She recently submitted a manuscript of that course to a science education journal.”

Lyford, who was the program’s first teaching postdoc, developed a course on site-directed mutagenesis that she taught while she was here, Carson said. “It was a successful upper-level course that had great reviews and that she presented at an American Society for Microbiology conference on undergraduate education.”

Meanwhile, Witherow, the second teaching postdoc, developed a course on experimental analysis of protein-protein interactions, and he was able to publish that course in a journal called BAMBED (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education).

During her teaching postdoctoral fellowship, Joanna Miller developed a course on RNA interference (RNAi) for upper level undergraduates and graduate students.

An assessment of that course was published in the journal CBE-LSE (Cell Biology-Life Sciences Education). She also published a lab manual/textbook on the course with the publisher Jones and Bartlett.

And the newest postdoc, Melissa Srougi, is developing a new upper level lab course that will be offered in spring 2012 called “Cell-Signaling Techniques.”

“All of the postdocs also teach BIT 410 and 510, which is our core course in manipulation and expression of recombinant DNA,” Carson said. “That’s where they get their mentored teaching, because I work closely with them on that. After they have a semester of that under their belt, then they develop their own new course. They’re still mentored but not as closely, because they’re pretty independent.”

Additionally, every summer the teaching postdocs mentor undergraduate research projects. winter 2012

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More news from Biotechnology Program:

PHAGE HUNTERS EXCEL

J

ust as this past summer teaching postdoc Dr. Heather Miller piloted BIT 100, a biotechnology overview course for non-majors, two years ago, Dr. Sue Carson and Dr. Eric Miller introduced BIT (MB) 210, or “Phage Hunters.” Phage Hunters is a phage biology research experience for first-year undergraduate students who are life sciences majors or in a related major.

Essentially the students spend the semester isolating new bacteriophages (phages), the viruses that infect bacteria, from collected soil samples, and then analyzing the phages by electron microscopy and extracting DNA. At the end of the semester, the students vote on their “favorite” phage, and the genomic DNA is sent to a sequencing facility to be sequenced. In the second semester — the course continues into BIT (MB) 211, “Phage Genomics” — they annotate the virus’ genome, extracting information from its genetic codes.

“They’re finding new genes and finding new organization of genes,” said Carson. “When we started the phage hunters, we thought it could be for majors and non majors, but it’s a fullyear project. We want the students to continue into the phage genomics course in the second semester. So we realized it is too big a commitment for many non-science majors. But it is an exceptional course for students interested in scientific research.”

And in just the second year of the course, there is significant news to report: “Students in both years already have their novel bacteriophage genome sequences published and listed in GenBank, the national database of all known DNA sequences,” Carson said. “One student each year has gone to a national meeting at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to present the work.”

The students have all presented at the N.C. State research symposium, she said, with one of the teams winning this past April. Microbiology major Joshua Russell Chappell, genetics major Lara Calil, biological sciences major Anna Knight and biochemistry major Hannah Berry won for their description of a beta-lactamase gene identified in the novel bacteriophage Mutaform13, a discovery that may yield new insights for antibiotic resistance research.

“In addition, student Allie Amick gave a talk on her research on homing endonuclease genes as agents of lateral gene transfer in Mycobacteriophage Mutaforma13 at the 2011 American Society for Microbiology N.C. branch meeting and won the Paul Phibbs Award for best undergraduate presentation. So as well as presenting at N.C. State, the students are going out to other venues to talk about their research,” Carson said. “I’m so proud of these students.

The vast majority of previous students from the class went straight into undergraduate research after completing the course.”

And while the teaching postdocs have not yet been involved in the phage hunters class, that may be changing soon, she said. “Right now we’re writing a large consortium grant with several other schools for more funding for the phage hunters course, and one of the things that we’re going to ask for is funding for a teaching postdoc to help with that class.” – Terri Leith

At the same time, this program maximizes their talents and energy which translate into very innovative, useful courses for students at N.C. State.”

Added Carson, “The value of having teaching postdocs is they’re there for three years, they can really accomplish something and then they move on to their more permanent careers. And you bring

in someone new who brings the latest and greatest to the biotech program.

“Because biotechnology is constantly evolving, it has been so great to be able to bring in fresh people, straight off the bench, straight out of research to develop new cutting-edge courses. It’s worked really well.”

They take their jobs very seriously, Carson said: “The postdocs evaluate their learning outcomes to make sure their students meet them.”

And how have the postdoc teachers been received? “Student evaluations of postdoc teaching have been across-the-board fantastic,” she said.

The teaching postdoc program is really one-of-a kind, Carson said. “There are not many teaching postdoc opportunities. UNC has one that’s a little bit different that I was involved in as a postdoc, but it wasn’t 100 percent teaching. I don’t know of any other programs that have teaching postdocs who are teaching fulltime and writing publications on their teaching.

“It is a unique program that was developed by the biotech program at N.C. State, and there aren’t many opportunities out there for people to have mentored teaching experience.”

But there is a lot of interest. “I do get a lot of inquiries,” Carson said. “We don’t have a program where people can apply every year; we have a certain number of slots. So when a person leaves, we advertise the position. And we get a lot of applicants, a lot of really good applicants. When we make our selection of our teaching postdocs, we get without exception really topnotch individuals.”

And so far, “all of our teaching postdocs have gotten faculty positions that are primarily teaching,” Carson said.

Heather Miller, who is currently applying for faculty positions, appreciates the advantages her fellowship has provided.

“Having this position has allowed me many unique opportunities on top of teaching: designing my own course, mentoring undergraduate researchers and performing research in the scholarship of teaching and learning,” Miller said.

“It essentially gives Ph.D.s a taste of what a faculty career is like and prepares them for that transition.

College Profile

Weed science specialist Fred Yelverton’s sphere of influence spans the globe but is most felt at home in North Carolina.

W

Beckyy Kirkland

by Dee Shore

hen it comes to its turfgrass program, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ faculty is among the nation’s most highly regarded. Yet even within that

elite faculty, there are standouts, and Dr. Fred Yelverton is certainly among them.

An expert in solving weed problems in lawns, along roadsides, among forage grasses and on athletic fields and golf courses, Yelverton has been named by the magazine publishing company Green Media as one of the 20 most influential people in the green industry.

In North Carolina, this sort of clout is massive, because the industry is a big part of the state’s economy, encompassing nursery, greenhouse, Christmas tree and turfgrass industries. Taken together, these industries have an estimated economic impact of $8.6 billion annually. Also within the green in-

dustry, turfgrass is especially significant because it covers 2.2 million acres in the state – more than any agricultural crop.

Yelverton’s importance to the industry derives in part from the fact that he’s very much a utility player: A professor in the Department of Crop Science, he not only teaches classes, mentors students and conducts research, he works directly with green industry professionals and with agricultural agents statewide as a specialist with North Carolina Cooperative Extension.

If that weren’t enough, Yelverton also co-directs, along with fellow crop scientist Dr. Tom Rufty and

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entomologist Rick Brandenburg, the you need a very uniform playIn recent years, he’s helped the College’s Center for Turfgrass Enviing surface,” he notes. “If there’s N.C. Department of Transportaronmental Research and Education. a lump of something out there, a tion come up with ways to reduce CENTERE, as it’s come to player can get really hurt.” mowing costs by $6 million a year be known, was set up 10 years While Yelverton’s influence is and yet keep down weeds so that ago with funding from the N.C. perhaps deepest in North Carolina, guardrails, signs and oncoming General Assembly to explore it spans the globe: He has a current traffic are visible. “Reducing sight how water quality is affected by research project in Australia related impairments on roadsides reduces pesticides, fertilizers and other accidents and saves lives,” Yelverton to making roads safer through betchemicals used to make lawns, ter roadside weed management. points out. And decreased mowing golf-course greens, athletic fields Last fall he taught seminars there is also good for the environment, and other grassy areas healthy. and in Singapore and South Korea. because it means less use of fossil CENTERE scientists also develop Over the years, his work has fuels. new methods to manage insects, taken him across the United States The scientist has also helped weeds and diseases in ways that and to six continents. He believes countless superintendents resolve enhance the environment. those travels not only have made weed problems that affect what he Yelverton focuses on weed manhim a better researcher and Extencalls “playability issues” on their agement, biology and ecology in sion expert by exposing him to golf courses. That, he says, aids turfgrass, as well as on plant growth regulator use in turfgrass. His goal: to help green industry pros manage weeds and turfgrasses in ways that are environmentally sound and economically viable.

“I continue to see my role … as someone who can help the green industry effectively manage weeds with no adverse environmental consequences,” he told Arbor Yelverton is a teaching and researching crop science professor and Extension specialist who works Age magazine. extensively with the green industry.

“In essence, I see my role as helping turfgrass new ideas and different weed mantourism and the economy, because managers with tools that help them agement strategies, they have also North Carolina hosts some of the be more successful.” made him a better teacher. nation’s major golf tournaments, Judging by the state and national and it ranks among the top 10 “You’re able to bring these difawards he’s won – not to mention ferent perspectives to the classstates in number of courses. the many times he’s been asked to room,” he says. “The more experiYelverton also routinely advises serve on advisory boards related ence – and the broader experience managers of athletic fields used by to environmental stewardship, – you can bring to your students, everyone from little leaguers to lawns and landscapes and more – the more that helps them profescollege players to pros. “In sports Yelverton is doing just that. sionally and personally.” fields, weeds are a big deal because

continue to be sold in Europe, where MH levels were restricted.

Through a combined research and Extension effort, he identified other ways to control yield-reducing suckers, and he worked with agents to help farmers adopt those methods.

In 1995, Yelverton’s career shifted from tobacco to turfgrass when he took the tenure-track position he now holds. Today, he says he’s happy to have made the shift – and others, including the peers who nominated him for the “Most Influential” distinction – are also glad he did.

Over the years, Yelverton has approached his work with a passion that extends to his family and to his hobbies. He’s an avid

‘In essence, I see my role as helping turfgrass managers with tools that help them be more successful.’ and early 1980s. After transferring from East Carolina University, Yelverton earned a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology in 1981, then decided he would get back to his farming roots by pursuing a master’s degree in crop science with a concentration in weed science.

After getting his M.S. in 1984, Yelverton went to work as an agricultural Extension agent back home in Wilson County. He was appointed as an Extension tobacco specialist in 1986, and that same year he started work toward a Ph.D. The next four years were difficult – “hell,” as he puts it – as he essentially juggled the two full-time jobs of specialist and student. “I’m glad I did it now,” he says. “But it was not easy. And I have a hard time recommending it to others.”

When Yelverton finished up the Ph.D. work in 1990, he was assigned to find ways to reduce residues of the plant growth regulator maleic hydrazide on tobacco so that American tobacco could

sports fisherman, golfer, cyclist and runner who’s completed a marathon. He works out every day, and he deliberately carves out time to spend with his wife of 26 years and his son.

It’s all part of a personal philosophy that’s summed up on the screen saver on his Williams Hall office computer: “No excuses.”

And by “no excuses,” Yelverton literally means no excuses.

None.

Not cancer.

And not even having two kinds of cancer at once.

Two years ago, at the age of 49, Yelverton was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer and with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL. His doctors told Yelverton that the CLL is not life-threatening, but the type of prostate cancer he has is especially dangerous. He’s been through

grueling radiation treatments, takes medication and sees his doctors frequently.

But he hasn’t let his medical condition slow him down.

“It would be easy to say, ‘I don’t want to run today’ or ‘I won’t go to work today because I have cancer.’

But you’ve got to get on with your life. You’ve got to move forward,” Yelverton says.

Yelverton’s determination to beat the cancer is bolstered by a positive outlook and the support of family and friends, including those from the campus running group affectionately known as the Road Scholars.

“They have been … an inspiration, and they help me combat my disease by keeping me active in running,” he says. “They sometimes joke, ‘Come on, Fred, it’s time for your treatment.’ They have helped me immensely – both physically and mentally.”

Yelverton also takes inspiration from cyclist and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong: “Lance Armstrong once said, ‘The day I was diagnosed with cancer was the day I started to live.’ I believe there’s a lot of truth to that,” Yelverton remarks.

“Having cancer can be a lifeenriching thing. It has been for me.

It helps you think about what’s important in life. For me, it’s family, friends and colleagues.

“It also makes you appreciate things more. And I have to say that I really appreciate my job and the opportunity N.C. State has given me to help students and to help other people.

“If there’s a better job out there, I couldn’t point to it.”

Working with students, Yelverton says, is the most rewarding aspect of his work. He hopes to have the kind of influence on their lives that the retired N.C. State professor Dr. Harold Coble had on his.

At the same time, Yelverton strives with his 12-year-old son to instill some of the same values that his parents conveyed to him.

His father – a farmer in eastern North Carolina – taught him the importance of hard work, he says, while his mother, a school teacher, stressed the importance of education.

He carried those values with him when he began studying at N.C. State University as an undergraduate in the late 1970s

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noteworthy

NEWS

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences researchers are working to develop a vaccine that would protect poultry – and by extension people who eat chickens and eggs – from Salmonella and the sickness and sometimes death the bacterium causes.

Salmonella is the most frequently reported cause of foodborne illness in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service. The federal Centers for Disease Control puts the number of reported cases of salmonellosis, the sickness caused by the bacterium, at 40,000 annually; however, many cases go undiagnosed or unreported. The CDC says the actual number of cases is likely well over a million.

Salmonellosis usually consists of 12 to 72 hours of diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps; however, an infection can be deadly for the elderly, infants or people with impaired immune systems.

While people can come in contact with Salmonella from a range of sources, one source of particular concern is poultry.

When it comes to Salmonella, “poultry seem to be one of the primary food items that people get exposed to, whether it’s meat or eggs,” says Dr. Matt Koci, assistant professor of poultry science.

Chickens can live with Salmonella; infected chickens don’t get sick. As a result, chicken flocks can be a reservoir for Salmonella, Koci explains.

And the eggs of infected chickens may be infected as well.

Koci and Dr. Hosni Hassan, professor of microbiology, are working

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Marc Hall

Protecting poultry from Salmonella

Dr. Hosni Hassan (left) and Dr. Matt Koci believe a vaccine for poultry can be developed from a mutant strain of Salmonella bacterium discovered in Hassan’s lab.

to produce a vaccine that would protect chickens from Salmonella infection. At the heart of this effort is a mutant strain, or type, of the Salmonella bacterium discovered in Hassan’s lab. The scientists believe they can use the mutant strain to make a Salmonella vaccine.

The mutant was a happy accident, Hassan says, discovered during unrelated research. The mutant form of Salmonella does not contain a master regulator gene found in other types of Salmonella, Hassan explains. The regulator gene controls approximately 300 other genes, he adds, and without these genes, the salmonella strain is attenuated, or less able to cause disease.

When he realized the benign nature of the mutant Salmonella strain, Hassan also realized it might be a good candidate for a vaccine. Vaccines work by teaching an organ-

ism’s immune system to recognize a disease-causing pathogen. If the vaccine does its work, the organism quickly recognizes the presence of a disease-causing pathogen and fights off the pathogen before it causes sickness.

Vaccines can be made with live but attenuated types of microorganisms or with disease-causing micro-organisms that have been killed. The vaccine Hassan and Koci are developing would be a live vaccine, and live vaccines are typically more effective than socalled killed vaccines.

Koci and Hassan think an inexpensive vaccine can be produced using the mutant Salmonella strain.

That’s important, because a vaccine will have to be inexpensive — around a penny a dose — to be considered cost-effective in the poultry industry.

N. C. State University shares the scientists’ optimism. The university has applied for a patent on the process used to produce the mutant, and Hassan and Koci have been awarded a $65,000 grant from the Chancellors’ Innovation Fund, which provides funding to help bring promising research to market.

Hassan and Koci think a vaccine could be used on poultry to produce Salmonella-free flocks.

There are now live Salmonella vaccines available, Koci says, but it’s not clear how effective they are at eliminating Salmonella.

In early November, Hassan and Koci had just finished one of their first tests of their vaccine and were analyzing the results. The scientists gave approximately 300 chickens oral inoculations of the

vaccine. They are now checking the chickens to see if they exhibited an immune response to the mutant salmonella strain used to make the vaccine.

“We also challenged the chickens with the virulent wild-type Salmonella, and we’re looking to see, Did giving the vaccine help the chickens prevent colonization by the virulent strain?, which ultimately is what the consumer cares about,” says Koci.

If the scientists can show conclusively that the vaccine works, they’ll experiment with more cost-effective ways to administer the vaccine, such as putting it in a spray that’s sprayed over poultry or in the water poultry drink.

Hassan and Koci also think the same process used to produce an attenuated strain of Salmonella

might be used to produce less-virulent strains of other bacteria that cause disease, such as E. coli and Shigella.

It may also be possible to add genes from other disease-causing organisms that infect poultry, such as Newcastle Disease, to the Salmonella strain, producing a multi-purpose vaccine. Hassan explains that if genes that contain the instructions for producing certain proteins can be added to the Salmonella vaccine, it’s possible the presence of the protein will elicit an immune response. The result will be protection from both Salmonella and the disease related to the protein.

The accidental discovery of a mutant form of Salmonella could end up providing people, poultry and other animals protection from a range of diseases. – Dave Caldwell

April Wynn chosen for Preparing the Professoriate program oon after setting foot on a college campus for the first time, April Wynn knew what she wanted to do for the rest of her life.

And today, as a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences doctoral candidate in genetics and one of the newest fellows of N.C. State University’s Preparing the Professoriate program, Wynn is a giant step closer to living her dream.

“I love the university setting,” Wynn says. “The focus on education is stimulating, the energy of the students is invigorating, and understanding new things through research is fascinating. I have always wanted to know what makes things tick, how things work, and why.”

Wynn earned her bachelor’s degree in natural science from McMurry University in Abilene, Texas, in 2004, and her master’s degree in student affairs administration in higher education from Texas A&M in 2006.

Now she studies plant genetics at N.C. State – specifically, flower

Marc Hall

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Genetics doctoral candidate April Wynn says teaching is a natural extension of her research.

development – and her teaching focuses on genetic ethics.

“Teaching is a natural extension of research for me,” she says. “If I discover something, I want to share it with others. I also have found that the more I teach the better I learn, so doing both is a win-win situation.”

Wynn was selected from a competitive, universitywide pool of candidates for the Preparing the Professoriate Program, which is designed to give doctoral students a hands-on teaching opportunity under a distinguished faculty mentor recognized for his or her teaching skills.

She is working with the Dr. Julie Pederson, CALS assistant professor of genetics, to prepare and teach an undergraduate elective course in genetic ethics. Wynn also will complete a teaching portfolio under the guidance of several faculty members.

In the first semester of the program, Wynn learned about such things as institutional fit, navigating the job market, tenure and different types of instructional technologies she can use to enrich the learning environment in her classroom.

This spring, she is teaching the undergraduate genetic ethics course that she designed with Pederson and will receive feedback from faculty and her peers. The

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teaching portfolio that she is developing through the program will be a key component of her application package for a faculty position.

After she graduates in May 2013, Wynn will pursue a post-doctoral position in plant genetics and eventually a faculty position “where I can integrate teaching with research,” she says.

According to Wynn, the Preparing the Professoriate program is playing a huge role in helping her achieve her goals.

“I love to ponder things and examine issues from all sides, so this program is just perfect for me,” Wynn says. “It is structured in such a way that you have been provided

resources before you realized that you needed them. I am learning how to become a faculty member, asking questions about things I don’t understand and researching topics that I want to explore further.

“Preparing the Professoriate has been terrific.” – Suzanne Stanard

Biodiversity project maps urban ants ne of Maya Herring’s favorite things to do is to check out insects living near her Raleigh home. An innovative project from N.C. State University’s Department of Biology is tapping into the 4-year-old’s interest – and that of hundreds of similarly intrigued children and adults – in an attempt to map the ants living in urban areas across the United States.

Starting in July, the School of Ants, as the project is called, armed hundreds of volunteers like Maya and her parents with a simple protocol for collecting ants, sending the ants in and reporting information about their collection online.

Some got plastic vials baited with Pecan Sandies crumbs, while others made their own collection kits with index cards, cookie crumbs and plastic bags.

By the end of October, the firstof-its-kind project had received ants from more than 600 people – teachers and students, homeschooled children, parents, senior citizens and others throughout the United States. Now scientists are identifying the ants, logging information about the found ants on an online map and linking to related photos and other information.

School of Ants is a citizen science project – one in which volunteers help trained scientists by doing such things as observing, measuring and recording data. Citizen science has been around a long time: One of the earliest citizen science projects is the Audubon Soci-

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Becky Kirkland

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Dr. Andrea Lucky says the ant biodiversity map could help scientists measure the effects of climate change, urbanization and introduced species.

ety’s Christmas Bird Count, which got its start in 1900.

In recent years, though, the concept has gained momentum, and at N.C. State, associate biology professor Dr. Rob Dunn has been building on that momentum.

School of Ants is one of three citizen-science projects that his lab has launched in recent months.

(More on the other two projects – Bellybutton Biodiversity and the Wild Life of Your Home – is available on the web at www.yourwildlife.org/.)

Dr. Andrea Lucky, a postdoctoral researcher who specializes in ant systematics, heads the School

of Ants. Though she’s been to such exotic places as Papua New Guinea to study ants, Lucky is quick to point out that there’s plenty of biodiversity right outside our doors.

Indeed, it didn’t take long before project scientists identifying the sent-in ants came across some surprises: Not only had the volunteers located known ant species in places those species had never been found before, they had also uncovered rare species and found at least one new species.

These sorts of discoveries get at the heart of two things Lucky hopes will come of the National Science Foundation-funded project:

First, the project is garnering the kind of information that will help fill in the map of U.S. ants that, up until now, was based solely on museum collections and reports in scientific journals.

“There are hundreds of ant species that are common to areas around people’s homes, and we don’t have good maps where we can pinpoint, ‘These are the areas where those insects are found,’” Lucky said. “Having a more complete map will, over time, be a useful tool in helping scientists measure the effects of such things as climate change, urbanization and introduced species.”

Second, she said, “the project is a not-so-surreptitious way of getting people to think a little bit about the science, the biology, the wildlife that lives around them.

“When people think of biodiversity, they think of a rainforest. That was certainly the case for me,” she added. “But there’s a lot of life going on right outside our doors. It’s something that’s very accessible to people.”

Maya and her parents, Brad and Tia, didn’t find anything around their home that scientists wouldn’t have expected, but they did come face to face with an ant that piqued their curiosity. The odd-looking ant, which they’d never noticed before, had a red head, brown body and black legs.

Brad Herring was a little disappointed when he went to the School of Ants website and found out that the ant was quite common, but that didn’t dampen his enthusiasm for the project.

“I think it’s absolutely an amazing project. It’s very unique, very creative and hopefully inspiring to young folks out there,” said Herring, an educator with the Museum of Life and Science in Durham. “Maya got to hold a test-tube for the first time, and she learned the basics of scientific research and collecting data.”

Herring said that one of the hardest lessons Maya learned is that studying insects sometimes involves sacrificing them. School of Ants participants were asked to put their collected ants into the freezer for a few hours before mailing them in.

“Maya had a hard time putting them in the freezer and then pulling them out and seeing they were all dead,” he said. “But I think through that, she learned something about what’s involved in science.”

For the Herrings, the project wasn’t just a one-time collection: Not only did Brad collect ants, he also created a YouTube video about the project and helped project organizers connect with home-school parents eager for ready-made science lessons.

“With home schooling, when you are having to do all the curricula yourself, having something that’s developed by scientists who

really know what they are doing helps us a lot,” Herring said.

Lucky said that developing teaching tools for school teachers and for home-schoolers is among the next steps for School of Ants.

She and her colleagues are also looking to take the project global as they find scientists in other countries who are willing to collaborate.

And they are hoping to capitalize on project participants’ enthusiasm by giving them the chance to suggest an experiment that School of Ants could implement.

“What we want to do is get people more involved – and not just in collecting but in asking questions and figuring out how to get answers. The goal is to have people involved in every step of the project,” Lucky said.

“This is a bit more uncharted territory as far as citizen science goes. But we want to see where it might lead.” – Dee Shore

Coming in April

‘Stewards of the Future’ research conference

N

obel Laureate Dr. Phillip A. Sharp and Juan Enriquez of Excel Venture Management will headline “Stewards of the Future: Research for Human Health and Global Sustainability,” a conference hosted by the N.C. Agricultural and Life Sciences Research Foundation and the N.C. Agricultural Foundation Inc., in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

The public event, which is designed to foster research collaborations in the agricultural and life sciences to meet urgent challenges to human health, the environment, social well-being and the global economy, takes place April 17, 2012, at the Jane S. McKimmon Center in Raleigh. In addition to keynote speakers and panel discussions, the conference will include an Innovation Fair that spotlights the latest projects of College researchers. Tickets are $95; there is no charge for faculty or students to attend.

To register, visit: www.cals.ncsu.edu/researchconference.

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Specialist shows how ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ scenario was not norm midst hectic family lives, it is tempting to recall the days of “Ozzie and Harriet” families, where Dad returned home from work each day to sit down to dinner with Mom in a dress and pearls and 2.3 kids. But a study by an N.C. State University faculty member shows that the nostalgic family of television fame was not the norm of American society that we believe today.

Dr. Kimberly Allen, family and consumer sciences Cooperative Extension specialist and assistant professor, conducted a literature review of American families of the past 100 years. Her research, published recently in the Journal of Extension, found that women in American families contributed financially to their families’ income throughout the 20th century.

The Journal of Extension article was co-authored by Dr. Carolyn Dunn, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences professor and associate state program leader for family and consumer sciences, and Dr. Sandy Zaslow, department head emeritus and associate director for FCS at N.C. State.

The article was done in recognition of N.C. Cooperative Extension’s celebration of 100 years of the program now known as family and consumer sciences. North Carolina’s home demonstration program was started in 1911 by Jane S. McKimmon as a way to bring research-based information on food and nutrition to rural women.

During the early 1900s and into the 1950s, Allen found that women worked long hours in the home, and many were isolated, especially in rural areas. Home demonstration clubs, started as girls’ Tomato Clubs, provided women the chance to learn how to safely preserve fresh food for their families.

Early home demonstration agents – called family and consumer sciences agents today – also 28 perspectives

Becky Kirkland

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Dr. Kimberly Allen notes how American family life has evolved beyond television stereotypes.

encouraged women to earn “butter and egg money” by selling extra produce and homemade products through curb markets, precursors to today’s farmers’ markets. The money they earned helped provide their families with shoes and clothing and support for their children’s education, Allen said.

During World War II in the 1940s, many women entered the workforce to replace men who were at war overseas. In the 1950s, many married women continued to work, Allen said, particularly middle class women. “It was a prosperous time – that’s what you saw in the media,” she said.

Manufacturing in Europe was halted by the war, providing more manufacturing opportunities for the United States. And the generation that fought WWII took advantage of the chance for a college education provided by the GI Bill.

“Many were the first generation of their families to attend college, and that started a cycle of prosperity,” Allen said.

In the 1960s and ’70s, women became more independent and more likely to earn a living working outside the home. FCS Exten-

sion agents supported families by orienting their training toward “changing families.”

Today’s families come in many demographic variations. Single-parent families are more common, as much as 30 to 80 percent, depending on demographic group. “Families are more diverse. Those who can really use (Cooperative Extension’s) help come in all forms, sizes, shapes and colors,” she said.

For the first 50 years of FCS, Extension agents were focused on rural families, helping them with food, business opportunities through market sales, home safety and human development. In the most recent 50 years, FCS agents reached out more to urban clients, expanding their focus to include parenting, financial management and job preparedness.

Allen said one of the biggest surprises of her research was discovering how instrumental women were to their families’ financial success throughout the 20th century. All along, “Extension agents were really out there making life better for their families,” she said.

The lingering recession has provided new challenges that FCS agents and specialists have stepped up to meet. To help families cope, Extension offers education related to job preparedness, financial resource management and helping families and children deal with emotional stress of economic woes.

In 2009, FCS professionals developed a set of fact sheets called “Take Control” on different aspects of dealing with family economic crisis.

In the future, FCS will have to rely more on technology – blogs, social media and other tools to reach families.

“We have to be open to what families look like, and we’ll do our jobs better. Not all families look like Ozzie and Harriet,” Allen said.

– Natalie Hampton

Student conducts research to address issues of HIV in South Africa hen Sindhu Ravishankar first came to N.C. State University four years ago to major in biology and international studies, she thought she might like to become a doctor. But by the time she met a boy in South Africa, a different future – one spent addressing community health through anthropology research – was unfolding.

Two years ago, Ravishankar spent a semester studying at the University of Cape Town and volunteering at a nearby hospital. At the hospital, she spent much time with a 3-year-old patient whose parents never visited. Ravishankar lavished time and gentle attention on the boy, who had tuberculosis and meningitis. She became so attached to him that when he was transferred to another hospital, she went with him, soon becoming known as the boy’s “other mother.”

That experience – and others that would follow in Cape Town — confirmed for Ravishankar that her ability to forge meaningful relationships with all kinds of people was an asset – one that she could use to make a difference not only with individuals but with whole communities.

Ravishankar is now a senior pursuing the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships for graduate study in medical anthropology and development studies in England. Her academic and professional goal is, as she puts it, “to bridge the gap between science and social science, quantitative and qualitative, anthropology and public health.

“I want to do research that not only results in knowledge,” she says, “but also has a community health impact.”

And already, Ravishankar is doing just that. She’s undertaken two HIV-related research studies in Cape Town, and she’s preparing to follow up with more research and with a community service project to address a problem she found.

It was her volunteer hospital work that sparked Ravishankar’s interest in HIV and its impact on communities. When she finished her semester at the University of Cape Town, she went to work as an intern with Wola Nani, a nonprofit group addressing the needs of people with HIV. She helped the organization coordinate activities for at-risk youth and oversaw adult HIV support groups.

As Wola Nani explored whether to bring in outside experts to bring

Becky Kirkland

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Sindhu Ravishankar is currently pursuing Rhodes and Marshall scholarships to study medical anthropology.

more structure to the groups, Ravishankar proposed something different: She saw value in the fact that Wola Nani was making use of their own clients as support group counselors, and she proposed a research project to get to know more about clients’ needs and recommend ways to structure the support groups to best meet those needs.

As she delved deeper into the research and into the relationships she made, she knew she wanted to contribute more. She decided she would return in the summer of

2011 and extend her research. With funding from N.C. State’s Undergraduate Research office, the University Honors Program and the Caldwell Fellows program – plus the help of professors at N.C. State and at the University of Cape Town — Ravishankar devised a qualitative anthropology field research project studying stigma’s impact on HIV patients’ anti-retroviral treatment adherence.

What she found once she started her research stood at odds with what she’d been reading in the literature.

“As I talked to people, I began to realize that my view on HIV before I got there to do this research was about five to 10 years outdated,” she says. “What I heard all the time when I started this research was, ‘Well, my brother in 1996 had HIV, and there was stigma back then, but now it’s always on the TV. People are disclosing in church. There are posters everywhere.’ ‘All of my family knows.’

‘Everyone supports me.’

“I was able to see how stigma had evolved to become less of a factor, so I wanted to find out what other factors could be involved in adherence to anti-retroviral treatment,” she recalls.

“If stigma doesn’t play as big a role, then what does?”

In the end, Ravishankar identified alcoholism, domestic abuse, the market for ARVs as recreational drugs, and poverty as significant factors. Without much money for food, patients would sometimes take medications without eating – which can lead to hallucinations and other significant side effects, she says.

This realization spurred Ravishankar to begin working toward a community development project to resolve impoverished patients’ need for food: With a service grant from Mercy Corps, a U.S. nonprofit organization winter 2012

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she says. “Disclosure isn’t just a one-time thing where people say, ‘I have HIV.’ It’s an ongoing process, and I want to learn more about that.”

As she talks about these projects and about the possibility of studying international development, public health and medical anthropology at Oxford University or the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, Ravishankar can’t help but return to that 3-year-old boy she met.

“Seeing that my being with the boy at the hospital was helping him

focused on helping people build secure, productive and just communities, she plans to implement neighborhood gardens in townships where people with HIV can grow their own fruits and vegetables.

Ravishankar also wants to continue to do research on HIV in Cape Town. Her next possible topic: how people disclose the fact that they have HIV. “Just as the reasons behind antiretroviral treatment adherence were much more complex than I had thought, so was disclosure,”

recover, I felt it was my responsibility to continue there. And this is the way I feel about the people I met through Wola Nani, as well,” she says. “When I think of going back to Cape Town, I have an image of specific people in my head.

They are more than HIV positive people to me, and I don’t want them to think I’ve forgotten them. I want to take what they’ve said and continue to develop and to learn and ultimately to empower them to address the needs of their communities.” – Dee Shore

ARE students travel to East Asia asey Skinner, a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences senior agribusiness management major who grew up on a tobacco farm in rural North Carolina, had never owned a passport before last spring. In fact, he had hardly set foot outside the state.

So it’s no surprise that his experience in East Asia, as part of a new study abroad course in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, was life-changing.

“This trip really and truly opened my eyes to things I would never have experienced before,” Skinner said. “Most importantly, the experience taught me that I can travel and do international business overseas.

I made connections with people in four different cities on this trip … it gave me options I would have never fathomed before. And I definitely feel more of a connection to the outside world.”

The study abroad trip, organized

by Dr. Frederick Parker, assistant professor of agricultural and resource economics, is designed to give students from agricultural communities an opportunity they might not otherwise find in traditional study abroad trips.

Parker designed the trip (with stops in South Korea, China and

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Courtesy Dr. Frederick Parker

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CALS agribusiness students get a new perspective at the Great Wall of China.

Thailand) to be about two weeks long. Ten students traveled to East Asia in June 2011.

“In each city that we visit, the objective is to have one day of cultural activity, one day of business meetings and at least one day of free time for the students to explore

on their own,” Parker said. “China and South Korea are among the top trading partners for the United States, so our objective was to go to the major business center in each of those countries.” – Suzanne Stanard

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ALUMNI

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fter her summer internship with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alumna Kimberly Spence is more certain than ever of her decision to pursue a career in public health.

A Park Scholar at N.C. State University, she graduated in May 2011 with a degree in biological sciences and started working at EDF soon after. As the water resources and public policy intern at the organization’s Raleigh office, Spence spent the summer investigating the potential ramifications of a fracking industry in North Carolina. Her studies centered on a shale formation that runs under the Deep River in Chatham and Lee counties.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the propagation of fractures in a rock layer caused by a pressurized fluid. The fractures may form naturally, or may be man-made by injecting a highly pressurized fluid into rock formations in order to release fossil fuels.

“Through this project, we learned that if a fracking industry was to come to North Carolina, many factors would need to be controlled in order to not influence current users of the natural resources,” Spence said. “For example, the process may be more feasible during the wetter months, rather than when our rivers run with less depth.”

Spence created an analytical model with interactive charts that allow users to change variables such as the number of fracking wells or the number of days in the

process in order to see the ecological and municipal impacts.

Her project was a direct response to the North Carolina General Assembly’s passage of House Bill 242, which allocates funding to determine if the practice of fracking is in the best interest of the state economically and environmentally.

“The biggest thing I learned was that environmental issues are not usually black and white,” Spence said. “With proper research, regulation and feedback, most new projects can be achieved.”

She describes her experience with EDF as “absolutely incredible” and credits the organization with making an impact worldwide.

“Working for them was a nobrainer,” she said. “I was very attracted to the possibility of learning more about North Carolina policy and politics in general. With the desire to go into the field of public health, I really wanted to broaden my horizons and gain knowledge and experience. The time I spent there opened my eyes to the way policies are formed and altered.”

Spence recently began studies toward a master’s degree in nutrition in the Department of Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences. She also is pursuing certification as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant at the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill and will take her certification exam this summer.

Blasting rock formations and helping women breastfeed may seem like very different endeavors,

Becky Kirkland

Kimberly Spence studies potential effects of fracking

Recent CALS graduate Kimberly Spence spent last summer investigating environmental and other ramifications incurred through the practice of hydraulic fracture of rock formations to release fossil fuels.

but to Spence, it all comes back to public health.

“They are very different, but also not so much,” she said. “I am interested in public health and benefitting the most number of people health-wise. What affects more people than our environment?”

After she earns her master’s degree, Spence said she plans to pursue a career in public health, specifically in the field of maternal and child health.

“I do hope to work clinically as a lactation consultant, but eventually I hope to make public health policy (continued next page)

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Spence (continued) changes that make North Carolina and the United States more breastfeeding-friendly,” she said.

“Growing up I was taught to value my opinion and my right to exercise it by being an informed citizen and by voting,” Spence said.

“However, after my experience

with EDF, I feel more prepared to discuss difficult and controversial topics. I am able to consider both sides of an issue and understand that the solution is rarely A or B, but typically somewhere in between.” – Suzanne Stanard

Alumnus brings solutions local and global, old and new to farmers both big and small

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businesses in 19 countries on four continents with everything from feasibility studies and business plans to grant applications and marketing surveys.

Today, Matson owns the Aiken, S.C.-based firm Matson Consulting (www.matsonconsult.com) and among his clients is his alma mater: Since 2004, he’s worked with N.C. State’s MarketReady, the Kannapolis-based Cooperative Extension program that works to help agricultural businesses be more successful and profitable through the development of partnerships, educational programs and information resources.

With MarketReady, Matson has

Courtesy James Matson

ollege of Agriculture and Life Sciences graduate James M. Matson has worked the world over, helping farmers and agribusinesses find solutions to their most pressing challenges. Often, Matson has found, the answer can lie close to home, in innovative local arrangements that give farmers more marketing and processing power.

Matson, who graduated from N.C. State University in 1989 with degrees in agricultural business management, economics and Spanish, has spent the past two decades working as a business adviser to farmers and agricultural organizations. He’s helped more than 250

Agribusiness consultant James Matson (left) visits a farmer to whom he has been a business adviser. Matson’s clients range from local individual growers to international large-scale producers.

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consulted on a number of projects.

For example, he helped develop a market study and pricing strategy for the Sandhills Farm to Table Cooperative, a group that involves some 1,240 growers, workers and consumers in Moore and surrounding counties. He also worked with a berry company in the mountains to plan an expansion and studied organic soybean marketing options for a processing group in the eastern part of the state.

In addition to his consulting work, Matson is also co-founder of a family-owned Internet-based promotional products company with clients in all 50 states. The business’ main commercial websites are www.runandwin.com and www.yourlogoworks.com.

While that business has been successful, Matson says his heart is with agriculture. He’s worked with some of the world’s most impoverished producers as well as with large-scale producers. He also consults with organizations that work with farmers – organizations like Farm Bureau and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Matson’s interest in agriculture is rooted in his childhood, growing up on a farm in Rockingham County and participating in 4-H. Through 4-H, he raised chickens, rabbits and goats and grew some produce. Once a state agricultural record book champion, Matson says that his first exposure to economics and business principles came when he was 12 years old, through a 4-H program called Economics in Action.

Though it’s been a good 25 years since he’s been a 4-H’er, Matson says he still relies on what he learned through the youth development organization.

Matson is a prolific public speaker, and he’s written dozens of publications on topics such as agricultural productivity and cooperatives. One of his latest areas of focus is food hubs.

Food hubs are centrally located facilities that make it easy for

Nick Pironio

College honors 2011-2012 Distinguished Alumni and Outstanding Alumni

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he College of Agriculture and Life Sciences announced Dr. S. Elizabeth George and H. Connor Kennett Jr. as its 20112012 Distinguished Alumni at the College’s annual Alumni Awards Reception Sept. 30. Dr. Johnny Wynne, College dean, presided at the reception held at the N.C. State University Club, where the College’s Outstanding Alumni and Outstanding Young Alumni for 2011 were also honored.

H. Connor Kennett Jr.

Nick Pironio

farmers to store, process, distribute and market locally or regionally produced food in volumes large enough to attract restaurants and grocery stores as customers, Matson explained. An example is Pilot Mountain Pride, featured in the summer 2011 issue of Perspectives, which markets produce in the Winston-Salem area.

Matson has helped write the book, so to speak, on food hubs.

With a U.S. Department of Agriculture grant, Matson, Martha Sullins of Colorado State University and Chris Cook of the Virginia Foundation for Agriculture, Innovation and Rural Sustainability Development wrote Food Hubs: Local Food Marketing Solution? He’s also written about the topic for the national Rural Cooperatives magazine.

The food hub idea and the local food movement it’s part of isn’t new, Matson points out. “Fifty years ago, you knew where your food came from because you bought your eggs from the egg lady, and your milk got dropped off by a dairy,” he says. “Our grandparents would say, ‘What’s so new about that?’”

What’s new, Matson responds, is the Internet. As consumers’ interest in buying locally produced food has surged, so has their ability to connect with local growers online.

And the Internet has proven to be a great place for farmers to tell their stories – something they are, in general, particularly good at.

While new-fangled technology can build farmers’ connections to consumers, Matson says that producers can’t forget tried-and-true marketing essentials.

“You still have to live by the mantra of quality and consistency,” he says. “You have to have quality and consistency to get in the door.

That’s the entry ticket. And once you do it, the passion you have and the ability to provide people with the things they want – great products that people want – will help you keep those customers.” – Dee Shore

Elizabeth George

George and Kennett were recognized for their outstanding career achievements, which have brought honor to the College, and for their commitment to the land-grant principle of service to community, state and nation.

George, who resides in Fairfax Station, Va., is widely considered one the nation’s leading authorities on chemical and biological warfare. She serves as the director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Directorate for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. George previously served as deputy division head of the Chemical and Biological Countermeasures Division in the Science and Technology Direc-

torate, Department of Homeland Security. A native of Austin, Texas, she received her 1979 master’s degree and 1984 Ph.D. in microbiology from N.C. State, after receiving her bachelor’s degree in biology from Virginia Tech.

Kennett, who lives in Sanford, served as director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Poultry Division from 1973 to his retirement in 1988, the longest tenure of any Poultry Division director. A native of Durham, he earned his N.C. State bachelor’s degree in poultry science in 1954. Following his graduation, he served two years in the U.S. Army before joining the USDA. Widely considered a major contributor to the development of the U.S. egg products industry, Kennett worked to implement and administer three major pieces of legislation impacting the poultry industry: the Poultry Products Inspection Act, the Egg Products Inspection Act and the Egg Research and Consumer Information Act. Along with the presentations to George and Kennett at the reception, the College honored the following graduates (listed with the CALS department from which they graduated).

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2011-2012 Outstanding Alumni • Roger Black, Crop Science • Michael Waldvogel, Entomology • Anne Fratzke Coan, Soil Science • Henry E. Schaffer, Genetics • Karl F. Hehl Jr., Agricultural Institute • Ronald W. Shearon, Agricultural and Extension Education • Anita P. Flick, Biology

• W. Steven Otwell, Food, Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences • Mary K. Muth, Agricultural and Resource Economics • Jack H. Britt, Animal Science • Danny R. McConnell, Horticultural Science

Nick Pironio

• James W. Jones, Biological and Agricultural Engineering

Shown from left are honorees Jones, Zigas, Kennett, George, Flick, Black, Muth, Waldvogel, Coan, Hehl, Shearon, Gwyn, Britt and Schaffer.

• Paul Hampton Zigas, Biochemistry – Terri Leith

2011-2012 Outstanding Young Alumni • Jennifer Roney Gwyn, Agricultural and Extension Education

CALS alumna marks special anniversary as agriculture teacher n 1986, when Gwen Gentry Clark graduated from N.C. State University with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural education, she made a list of goals she hoped to achieve in her career as a high-school agriculture teacher. Among those goals was that at least one of her students could obtain the coveted American FFA Degree. This year, as she celebrated her 25th year as an agriculture teacher at Avery County High, she also celebrated the achievement of that goal – twice over. Not one but two of her former students became the first students ever from Avery County to earn the degrees, which they received at the 2011 National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, Ind., this past October.

One of the two honorees is Clark’s former student Olivia Watson, who graduated from Avery in 2009 and is now a College of Agriculture and Life Sciences student majoring in agricultural education.

The other is 2010 Avery graduate

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and current Lenoir-Rhyne University student Jared Clark — who is also Gwen Clark’s son.

Jared and Olivia were among 60 FFA members from North Carolina

Courtesy Gwen Clark

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Clark was honored by her students and colleagues for her 25 years of teaching.

who earned the 2011 American FFA Degree.

“The American FFA Degree is the highest award an FFA member can earn as an individual,” Clark said. “It is a strenuous application and one that an FFA member must set a goal of achieving while in high school, as early as the 10th grade.”

Clark herself was awarded the Honorary American FFA Degree in 1999.

At Avery County High, she teaches three levels of horticulture courses and agricultural advanced studies. And of course she is adviser to the high school’s FFA. “The leadership potential through the FFA is amazing,” she said. “I am a product of it myself.

Watching students gain self confidence and know that they are unique and that there is a place for them in this organization is amazing.” – Terri Leith

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GIVING

“Stop the presses!” was the rallying cry at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ 2011 Donor Recognition Event. That’s because the reception’s exhibits were themed around CALS programs and activities that have been newsmakers in the pages of Perspectives, the magazine of the College.

The annual celebration of the College’s scholarship, fellowship and professorship donors and supporters of research, teaching and extension programs was held in the McKimmon Center Nov. 6. Attending were the CALS administrators, faculty and scholarship students who were there to thank their benefactors.

Exhibits were arranged as an “Innovation Fair Featuring CALS’ Top Stories,” and each display was illustrated with a poster-sized Perspectives “cover” depicting the featured activities.

Among the “stories” on exhibits circling the room were the Dale and Genia Bone Scholars program; the new undergraduate degree program in soil and land development from the Department of Soil Science; the research of Dr. John Cavanagh and the CALS Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry; bed-bug and other pest-management research in the Department of Entomology; Department of Genetics and genomics research; the research of Dr. Trudy

Becky Kirkland

Donor generosity is the top story as CALS newsmakers are on display at 2011 Donor Recognition Event

Bone Scholars Guadalupe Arce-Jimenez (left), Aaron Becerra and Stephanie Knowles share the news about their scholarship program at the CALS Donor Reception.

Mackay, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished University Professor of Genetics, and of the W.M. Keck Center for Behavioral Biology; and information about the Initiative for Biological Complexity.

Next on exhibit were Perspectives features on the College’s celebration of the centennial of Family and Consumer Sciences, with copies of the recently published FCS history.

Nearby stood an exhibit about last year’s centennial celebration of North Carolina 4-H, with copies of that program’s newest history, Clover All Over, available.

Rounding out the exhibits were presentations from the College’s Phytotron, the controlled environment plant research facility; the Entrepreneur Initiative for Food (ei4f); the Cook Smart/Eat Smart program; and Howling Cow ice cream and the new Schaub Hall Creamery annex.

Also on display were facts about Perspectives magazine, as well as samples of all 46 issues since 1999.

Anna McKain, a CALS senior majoring in animal science and poultry science who is recipient of the

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Connor Kennett Jr. Endowed Scholarship, served as emcee of the event.

Featured student speaker Stephanie Knowles, a sophomore in Extension education, told of her pride in representing the Dale and Genia Bone Scholars. “Without the Bone Scholarship, my dream of attending N.C. State would not have become a reality,” she said.

Dr. Johnny Wynne, CALS dean, also thanked the donors on behalf

of the College and N.C. State for “your outstanding support and leadership and all that you have done to make this celebration possible today.”

The dean noted that next March the College and the university will be celebrating the 125th anniversary of N.C. State and the 150th anniversary of the Morrill Act that created the land-grant universities. “Both

celebrations are coming up in 2012,” Wynne said. “We honor our past but do so while looking forward with visions for our future.”

Following Wynne, N.C. State Chancellor Randy Woodson took the podium and thanked the donors for their “remarkable investment in the best college of agriculture and life sciences in the country.” – Terri Leith

CES foundations announce new endowments

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perspectives

• North Carolina Family & Consumer Sciences Program Enhancement Fund • North Central Extension & Community Association Enhancement Fund • Hilda Teague Cope Endowment for the Eastern 4-H Center • Dr. Thomas N. Hobgood Jr. and Mrs. Miriam A. Hobgood 4-H Scholarship Endowment

• North Carolina Farm Bureau 4-H Agricultural Leadership Endowment • North Carolina State 4-H Council Program Enhancement Fund • North Carolina 4-H Program Enhancement Fund • Northeast District 4-H Council Enhancement Fund – Suzanne Stanard

Troxler and Rouzer honored at CALS joint foundations event

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orth Carolina Commissioner of Agriculture Steve Troxler and state Sen. David Rouzer are the 2011 recipients of the Distinguished Service Awards, presented by the North Carolina Agricultural Foundation.

The awards are given annually to individuals who provide outstanding support to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and N.C. State University. Troxler and Rouzer were honored Nov. 3 during the joint luncheon meeting of the N.C. Agricultural, Dairy and Tobacco foundations at the N.C. Steve Troxler (left) and David State University Club.

Rouzer at the Nov. 3 meeting.

The two were recognized for providing “great leadership and advocacy on behalf of our citizens, agriculture and higher education in North Carolina,” said Dr. Johnny Wynne, CALS dean, who hosted the event. — Terri Leith

Marc Hall

Despite a slow economy, the three foundations that support North Carolina Cooperative Extension had something to celebrate at their last meeting: 14 new endowments and enhancement funds.

Dr. Johnny Wynne, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, presided over the September luncheon meeting of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Foundation, the 4-H Development Fund, the Family and Consumer Sciences Foundation and the North Carolina Extension and Community Association Foundation.

Through the Campaign for Counties, Extension has established at least one fund in all 100 of the state’s counties. At press time, the total number of funds that support counties was 750.

The new endowments and funds are • John Q. Adams V Agricultural Scholarship Endowment for Greene County • The Friends of the Arbor Gate Enhancement Fund (Alamance County) • Hertford County CES Literary Enhancement Fund • Lenoir County Master Gardeners Enhancement Fund • McInnis Family Scholarship Fund for Youth in Meat Goat Programs • Rockingham County CES Endowment

2011 CALS Tailgate group fills Dorton Arena to celebrate

20th annual pre-game party Great food, special attractions, family activities, live music: On Sept. 17, Dorton Arena had it all!

Photos by Becky Kirkland

No, it wasn’t the State Fair come early.

It was the 20th annual College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Alumni and Friends Society Tailgate.

Among the biggest and best of the university’s pre-game parties, the CALS tailgate featured an all-you-caneat catered BBQ meal, accompanied by live music, plus an arena full of College department exhibits and a special visit from the NCSU pep band, along with Mr. and Ms. Wuf. Tailgaters of all ages enjoyed encounters with exotic reptiles and insects, played games, sat for Wolfpack-themed face-paint and learned about CALS academic, research and Extension programs from CALS faculty and students.

Guests also browsed among tables packed with silent auction wares, with proceeds benefitting the CALS Alumni and Friends scholarship endowment.

“We raised $6,500 in the silent auction,” said Scott Troutman, executive director of the CALS Alumni and Friends Society, who added that “attendance was right around 1,200, making it the largest N.C. State alumni event.”

Afterward, the guests headed across the road to Carter-Finley Stadium, where the Wolfpack treated the faithful to a 35-13 victory over South Alabama.

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PERSPECTIVES College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Campus Box 7603 North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC 27695-7603

Becky Kirkland

NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID RALEIGH, NC PERMIT #2353

Smoothies, ice cream, frozen pop treats, baby food and more are among the healthy and delicious family of muscadine products that growers hope to offer, with help from CALS. (Story, page 15 )

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