In Review

In Brief

New Aids Vaccine Gets $13 Million Boost

Rochester scientists who have pioneered an approach for creating a new type of AIDS vaccine that has shown early promise in tests in mice have been awarded a $13 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to complete testing to move the vaccine into clinical trials. The research takes advantage of a feature of DNA, called an amplicon, that causes the DNA of a virus to be copied many times over before the virus infects healthy cells. When they replaced the DNA of the herpes virus with key snippets of DNA from the AIDS virus and injected the re-engineered virus into mice, the Rochester team found that the animals’ immune systems responded by creating antibodies and killer T-cells that might mount an aggressive defense against an infection caused by the AIDS virus.

Rochester Equipment Performs Well on NASA Telescope

NASA scientists are expected to get some of their most detailed images ever about the births of stars and the evolution of solar systems, thanks to work by Rochester scientists who helped design the detectors on the agency’s new infrared space telescope. Professors of physics and astronomy Judith Pipher, Bill Forrest, and Dan Watson worked on chips sensitive to infrared light that are aboard the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF). Launched in August, the telescope was expected to be working at full capacity this winter.

Let The Game Begin—But Skip The Boring Parts

A software program developed by Rochester engineers is giving new meaning to the traditional highlight reel. Doctoral student Ahmet Ekin has developed software, dubbed the Automatic Sports Video Analyzer, that creates edited versions of televised sporting events that show nothing but action. Ekin pictures the program eventually being used to create edited versions of games recorded on a personal video recorder like TiVo. Ekin’s advisor, A. Murat Tekalp, professor of electrical and computer engineering, says the program has potential as an economical way to bring sports to video cell phones.

What’s Your Musical Mood?

Your computer could someday be your DJ, picking just the right music to match your mood, according to preliminary research by Rochester computer scientist Mitsu Ogihara. Ogihara has applied for a patent on software that can tell not only whether a piece of music is jazz or classical or rock, but also can identify the music’s emotional tone. While still in early development, the program is able to correctly pin down emotional evocation 64 percent of the time, and categorize genre with an unprecedented 78 percent accuracy. A recent study of human ability to sort music into genres found that human listeners were correct about 71 percent of the time.

Eastman ‘Organ’—izes Memorial Art Gallery Acquisition

Visitors to the Memorial Art Gallery will be able to appreciate a different kind of art when the gallery becomes home to an 18th-century, full-size Italian Baroque organ in 2005. The organ—the first of its historic nature to be installed in North America—is being purchased and restored through the Eastman Rochester Organ Initiative, the Eastman School of Music’s 10-year plan to assemble a collection of new and historic organs. The antique organ, which is undergoing a three-year renovation, will be used by Eastman students and faculty, visiting musicians, and local organists.