ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM Thursday, October 29, 2015
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‘U’ officials: Bystander intervention efforts work MARINA ROSS/Daily
LSA sophomore Austin Hatch, a two-time plane crash survivor and undergraduate student assistant to the Michigan men’s basketball team, speaks about facing challenges at the Talk it UP! event in the Hatcher Graduate Library on Wednesday.
Talk it UP! provides forum for ref lection on resilience Austin Hatch discusses hardship, overcoming obstacles By ISOBEL FUTTER Daily Staff Reporter
When LSA sophomore Austin Hatch was 8 years old, his life changed completely. His father was piloting a plane intended to return the family home from a
spring break trip when it stalled and crashed, killing his mother, younger brother and older sister. Then, in 2011, nine days after Hatch committed to play for the Michigan men’s basketball team, the unimaginable occurred: Hatch was the sole survivor of a second plane crash with his father as the pilot. The crash killed his father and stepmother. “I was told there was a one in 3.4 million chance in surviving a plane crash with at least one fatal-
ity,” he told a crowd in Hatcher Graduate Library on Wednesday. “That’s just one, so if you multiply that against each other, I had a one in 11 quadrillion 560 trillion chance to survive.” Hatch, along with several faculty members who faced their own challenging circumstances, shared his story of resilience Wednesday at Talk it UP! Sponsored by the Newnan Academic Advising Center, Talk it UP! provided a forum for mem-
bers of the University community to reflect on the meaning of failure, success and endurance. The event featured a handful of short talks throughout the day. Hatch told the audience he had to relearn to walk, talk, eat and live a normal life after the accident. “I had basketball in my future, and I knew I had committed to Michigan,” he said. “I had something to work towards. All of See RESILIENCE, Page 2A
MEDICINE
By KATIE PENROD Daily Staff Reporter
For years, scientists have been attempting to turn off Notch, a common cancer-causing gene, without much success. Now, University researchers may have discovered a solution. A new study focused on Notch was led by Mark Chiang, assistant professor of internal medicine in the Medical School. Notch is heavily involved in T-cell leukemia, a cancer commonly found in children, and is also involved in breast cancer, colon cancer, melanoma and other lymphomas. In the past, Chiang said, all drugs aimed to target Notch have been associated with serious and even life-threatening side effects. This motivated his team to find a safer way to target the gene. Chiang said targeting Notch has been particularly difficult
because the gene also has beneficial functions within the body. “It’s been very hard to target Notch because Notch not only has cancer causing-functions, but also important normal functions like keeping your intestines healthy or preventing you from getting cancers,” Chiang said. “If you simply block off Notch functions, yes you can kill some cancer cells, but then you have diarrhea — that can be life-threatening — and also second cancers.” Chiang said the team wanted to investigate exactly what activates Notch’s cancer-causing activities. The team discovered a protein called Zmiz1, which sticks to Notch and turns on the cancercausing functions. When the protein was separated from Notch in mice, Chiang said mice did not experience side effects typically associated with Notch-inhibiting drugs. “If we try to break the interaction between or unstick Zmiz1 from Notch, then we can actually cause tumor regression,” he said. “This may be a way to kill cancer cells but without the major toxicities of Notch inhibitors.” See CANCER, Page 3A
By ALLANA AKHTAR Daily Staff Reporter
Though violations related to alcohol, drugs and sexual misconduct increased in 2014 over the previous year, data from the University’s Change It Up! workshop indicates that students feel more prepared to intervene in potentially harmful situations after participating in the program. According to survey data provided to The Michigan Daily by the Office of Student Life, the number of students who “very strongly agree” that they are motivated to intervene in harmful situations rose by 24 percent after completing the Change It Up! program during the 20132014 school year.
The survey is based on evaluations of students’ propensity to intervene in harmful situations and responses to what they consider harmful behavior. Those markers were measured before and after participating in the Change It Up! training, which is mandatory for first-year students. Overall, the total percentage of students who said they agree it is their business to intervene in harmful situations rose by 93.89 percent following the workshop. The University began implementing Change It Up! programs last year for incoming freshman students. Will Sherry, director of the Spectrum Center, said the program is an introduction to helping students identify a variety of harmful situations.A number of other programs throughout the year, including Relationship Remix and AlcoholEdu, also aim to teach first-year students aspects of bystander intervenSee INTERVENTION, Page 2A
CAMPUS LIFE
COFFEE CR AZE
Researchers target cancercausing gene Discovery could advance treatment of lymphoma, breast and colon cancer
Survey results from Change It Up! program illustrate progress in 2014
Lecturer discusses post-Soviet corruption University alum talks desperation in central Asian republics By BRIAN KUANG
DAVID SONG/Daily
Ann Arbor resident Chris Liu, known by his barista name Butch Lao, prepares coffee for customers at Comet Coffee on Wednesday.
HEALTH
Adolescent painkiller use may impact later drug abuse Study explores links between past drug experience, misuse down the road By ALEXA ST. JOHN Daily Staff Reporter
Adolescents who reported receiving a prescription from a doctor for a pain reliever are
nearly 33 percent more likely to misuse pain relievers compared to those who never received a doctor-prescribed opioid, according to recent University study. The subjects of the study’s focus group, 12th grade students, were asked to report whether or not a doctor prescribed them a pain reliever and if they used it. Researchers then provided the same students with follow-up questions between the ages of 19
and 23 to see if the students who had been prescribed pain relievers were more likely to misuse them when they get older than those who never used an opioid. Conducted by the University’s Institute for Social Research, the study also determined whether a student’s previous experience with drugs — including drugs other than opioids, such as marijuana and alcohol — played a role in a student’s conSee PAINKILLERS, Page 3A
Daily Staff Reporter
In a lecture at the LSA International Institute on Wednesday, Kelly McMann, a University alum and political science professor at Case Western Reserve University, challenged traditional conceptions of corruption based on more than a decade studying post-Soviet Central Asian republics. Referencing her 2014 book, “Corruption as a Last Resort: Adapting to the Market in Central Asia,” McMann argued that petty political corruption in developing postcommunist countries is not a result of bureaucratic overreach, poverty or a culture that disregards rule of law. Rather, it occurs when citizens have See CORRUPTION, Page 3A
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INDEX
Vol. CXXV, No. 21 ©2015 The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
NEWS......................... 2A OPINION.....................4A SPORTS......................5A
SUDOKU.....................2A CL ASSIFIEDS............... 5A B-SIDE ....................1B