Justin Fay has brewed wine and beer from dozens of different types of yeast. But not necessarily for drinking pleasure. It’s all in the name of scientific research.

Fay, an associate professor of biology, studies yeast in order to tackle bigger questions about evolutionary biology. For example: What is the genetic basis of evolutionary change? What is the basis of differences among species or among individuals within a species?

In a new paper published in the journal PloS Biology, Fay and his colleagues report some intriguing findings about a specialized strain of commercial yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also known as brewer’s yeast. S. cerevisiae has been used to make beer for thousands of years and is genetically distinct from wild populations of yeast. But while brewer’s yeast has specialized characteristics, its historical origins have been difficult to determine because yeast was around long before people discovered microorganisms.

Fay and his colleagues set out to unravel the complex pedigree of brewer’s yeast by analyzing its genome. What they found was surprising: the genome of brewer’s yeast is actually derived from a combination of the yeast strains used to make European grape wine and the yeasts used to make Asian rice wine. The results provide information about the domestication of organisms and may offer brewers insights that can lead to novel, new beer flavors.

It can be difficult for researchers to trace the origins of domesticated organisms because an organism’s lineage is often clouded by migration, gene flow, and intermixing with other groups. But the researchers found that brewer’s yeast has several unique characteristics that allowed it to remain relatively isolated from other species. For one, brewer’s yeast is polyploid, meaning it has three or four copies of the genes in its genome. Human diploid cells, by comparison, have two copies of 23 chromosomes (46 chromosomes total) and human haploid gametes (egg and sperm) have only one copy of 23 chromosomes.

Because it is polyploid, brewer’s yeast does not easily combine naturally and exchange genetic material with its wild ancestors. That leads to less contamination, allowing researchers to more easily trace the strain’s lineage. “Polyploidy provided the yeast strain with a means of remaining isolated from other populations and provided us with a living relic of its ancestors,” Fay says.

To reconstruct the history of modern ale strains, Fay and his colleagues sequenced and compared the genomes of modern brewer’s yeast to a panel of reference strains. That’s how they discovered that the genomes of the modern beer strains were similar to the genomes of European grape wine strains and Asian rice wine strains. The researchers conjecture that modern brewer’s yeast is derived from a melting pot of fermentation technology, resulting from an East-West transfer similar to the spread of domesticated plants and animals by way of the Silk Route, thousands of years ago.

Read more here.

An average of one to two home health physical therapy sessions per week can help lower the risk of re-hospitalization by up to 82 percent in older adults during a 60-day period, according to research findings published in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.

The study, led by Jinjiao Wang, an assistant professor in the School of Nursing, examined the impact of specific services in Medicare-certified home health care (HHC) programs —  such as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and skilled nursing — on subsequent re-hospitalization among older patients.

Each year, more than 3.3 million re-hospitalizations occur in the United States, costing more than $41 billion. Older patients are particularly at risk for post-discharge functional decline and re-hospitalization, which occur in one-third of Medicare patients within 90 days of hospital discharge. To prevent unplanned re-hospitalization, older patients with high medical complexity are referred to post-acute services, such as HHC.

Previous research has demonstrated that HHC is effective in improving physical function and reducing health care costs, but this study is the first to systematically examine the relationships between specific services to find the threshold, or minimally effective, “dose” to avoid re-hospitalization.

“This finding highlights the complex medical and functional conditions in HHC patients, thus the need of ‘precision HHC,’” says Wang. “Currently, the dose of HHC is primarily determined based on personal experience and agency protocols. In light of the recent Medicare value-based purchasing model that penalizes HHC agencies with above-average re-hospitalization rates, a systematic approach should be developed to individualize HHC intensity and ensure that enough HHC services are provided for persons at risk for re-hospitalization.”

The study examined more than 1,300 patients age 65 or older who were admitted into an HHC program within 48 hours of hospital discharge. Among them, 11.5 percent were re-admitted during 60 days. However, both physical therapy and skilled nursing were effective in avoiding re-hospitalization. During the 60 days’ post-hospitalization period, a threshold of one physical therapy visit per week lowered the risk of hospitalization by 82 percent. An average dose of two skilled nursing visits per week lowered the patients’ risk by 48 percent.

The intensity of home health aide and occupational therapy visits was not found to be significantly related to re-hospitalization.

Wang notes, however, that the findings should be interpreted with caution as the sample was based on one HHC agency and that patients with severe dementia and cancer were excluded from analysis.

Read more here.

Sally A. Norton has been named the new associate dean for research at the School of Nursing.

A longtime faculty member at the school, Norton assumed her new duties overseeing the School of Nursing’s research mission on April 1.

In a career dedicated to improving the care of patients with advanced illness, Norton’s research has focused on palliative care and end-of-life decision-making with emphases on the communication processes and practice patterns of care delivery in acute and long-term care settings. She has also worked successfully across professions to improve communication and understanding surrounding systems of palliative care and hospice delivery, and to pinpoint the approaches most meaningful to patients and families that lead to the highest quality outcomes.

Over the past two decades, she has been a principal or co-investigator in dozens of funded research studies on palliative care and has authored or co-authored nearly 100 papers. In 2017, Norton was honored with the Distinguished Researcher Award by the Hospice & Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA).

“I’m thrilled that Sally has agreed to take on this critical leadership position at the school,” said Kathy Rideout, the dean of the School of Nursing. “Sally’s impressive body of work in the areas of palliative care and research design is well respected by her peers on the faculty, and her intimate knowledge of research funding and how scientific discovery today translates to better, more efficient health care for patients tomorrow makes her an ideal choice to build on our history of innovative and transformative research.”

Norton replaces Kimberly Arcoleo, who stepped down from the role after three years this past January to devote more time to her research activities.

Read more here.

PhD candidates Rohma Khan of the Department of History and Patrick Sullivan of the Visual and Cultural Studies Program are winners of this year’s competition for graduate student Public Humanities Fellowships offered by Humanities New York and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Khan’s project “Rochester’s Immigrant Tales: Voices of a Local Pakistani Community” aims to preserve the stories of Pakistani immigrants and their families who settled locally. “This collaborative oral history project,” Khan notes, “prompts community members to engage in heritage-based work to spotlight the lives and contributions of Pakistani Americans. The project will dispel notions that the Pakistani community is insular, and in fact, will shed light on how they play an active role in shaping local politics, social activities, and supporting larger community causes in Rochester.”

Sullivan’s project, “Media Literacy, Media Agency,” will bring Rochester city high school students to the University of Rochester campus to learn not only the critical language of media but also how to make media, in particular a video essay.  “In our contemporary mediascape, one riddled with claims of false news as well as problematic representations of gender and race,” Sullivan writes, “the ability to deftly analyze media is vital for engaged citizenship, yet the course, through its combination of analysis and praxis, seeks to move beyond the act of interpretation to facilitate students’ ability to change their mediascape.”

Danielle Benoit, associate professor of biomedical engineering, who will receive the University’s College Award for Undergraduate Teaching and Research Mentorship at the Undergraduate Research Exposition this afternoon (see calendar below). The award, first given last year, salutes tenured faculty members in Arts, Sciences & Engineering who excel as scholars, teachers, and mentors of undergraduate students. Read more here.

Jesse Wang, an MD/PhD candidate at the Medical Center, who tied for the audience choice award in the ACP Innovation Challenge — a “Shark Tank”-style competition hosted by the American College of Physicians on April 13 in Philadelphia. Wang described his work on The Digital Scribe, an innovation that aims to reduce the overwhelming amounts of medical documentation. It is an intelligent speech system that would automatically convert the physician-patient conversation into an encounter note. Read more here.

The Lung Biology and Disease Program is soliciting high-risk, high-reward pilot projects related to lung biology or disease. All faculty are eligible to apply, including research and tenure-track faculty. Awards will be based upon scientific merit and the potential for generating extramural funding. Applications are due by 5 p.m. on Friday, May 3, with an anticipated start date of June 1.

Lucas Pahl, economics, “Essays in Repeated Games and Index Theory.” 1 p.m. April 24, 2019. Harkness 113. Advisor: Srihari Govindan.

Linfeng Song, computer science, “Tackling Graphical NLP Problems with Graph Recurrent Networks.” 9:30 a.m. April 29, 2019. Wegmans Hall 2506. Advisor: Daniel Gildea.

Sharanyan Srikanthan, computer science, “Sharing-Aware Resource Management for Multicore Systems.” 4 p.m. April 29, 2019. Goergen 108. Advisor: Sandhya Dwarkadas.

Albert Ciprut, electrical engineering, “Grids in Very Large Scale Integration Systems.” 1 p.m. May 8, 2019. 426 Computer Studies Building. Advisor: Eby Friedman.

Erik Garcell, physics, “Functionalization of Materials via Femtosecond-Pulse Laser Irradiation.” 2 p.m. May 14, 2019. Bausch and Lomb 106. Advisor: Chunlei Guo.

Meghan Dorn, materials science, “Characterizing Large Format 10m Cutoff Detector Arrays for Low Background Space Applications.” 2 p.m., May 20, 2019. CSB 209. Advisor: Judith Pipher.

Today: Undergraduate Research Exposition. College-wide event in which University of Rochester students at all levels and in all areas of study are invited to present their investigative and creative work. It includes a symposium featuring three participants from each of four disciplines, running from 12:30-1:30 p.m., in four separate locations on campus. A poster session will be held from 2-3 p.m. in the Hawkins Carlson Room at Rush Rhees Library. An awards ceremony will take place starting about 3:15 p.m. in the Welles Brown Room. Read more here.

April 22: Deadline to apply for UR-CTSI Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Pipeline-to-Pilot grant of up to $15,000. Read the full request for applications. For questions, contact John Cullen.

April 23: UR CTSI Town Hall meeting to get the research community’s input to help shape the Institute’s proposal for renewed CTSA funding. Co-directors Nancy Bennett and Martin Zand will provide a brief overview of the UR CTSI’s proposed plan. 4-5 p.m. Class of ’62 Auditorium. Add to your calendar.

April 23-24: Workshops on using Dimensions, a linked research information system, to explore a research area, use the API, find collaborators, access metrics and other data, and explore new grant opportunities. Sponsored by River Campus Libraries and AS&E. More information and registration links are available here.

April 25: 31st Annual Genetics Day. 9 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. Class of ’62 Auditorium and Flaum Atrium. Lecture by Phillip D. Zamore, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Massachusetts on piRNAs and the Struggle to Reproduce. 

April 26: Preproposals due for Technology Development Fund awards of up to $100,000 to develop a technology to a commercial endpoint. Submit preproposals to omar.bakht@rochester.edu. View more information online.

May 1: Deadline to apply for funding of up to $30,000 from the Environmental Health Sciences Center (EHSC) for pilot projects relevant to the center’s theme: environmental agents as modulators of human disease and dysfunction. For additional information, contact Deborah Cory-Slechta,  Pat Noonan-Sullivan or go to the EHSC website.

May 2: Jesse L. Rosenberger Works-in-Progress seminar. Tracy Stuber and Anastasia Nikolis, Public Humanities graduate fellows, present a public humanities fellowship update. Noon to 2 p.m. Humanities Center Conference Room D at Rush Rhees LIbrary. Lunch provided. RSVP by clicking here.

May 3: Applications due for high-risk, high-reward pilot projects offered through the Lung Biology and Disease program. All faculty are eligible to apply, including research and tenure-track faculty.

May 15: Deadline to apply for funding from the UR CTSI Center for Leading Innovation and Collaboration (CLIC) to write a Synergy Paper focusing on a new approach to translational science or a review of a pressing translational science topic. All application requirements are on the CLIC website.

May 23: The Rochester Advanced Materials Science Program (RAMP) Symposium, on the topic of “Biologically Engineered Materials.” 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Goergen Hall Sloan Auditorium. Featuring five keynote speakers, a poster session, and lightning talks.  Register for a poster presentation and lightning talks by e-mailing Gina Eagan. 

May 23: Deadline to apply for funding from the Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences (CEIS) to support projects with NY companies that promote technology transfer to those companies. All proposals must be submitted by email as attachments using the forms on the CEIS web site at http://www.ceis.rochester.edu/funding/CIRP.html. Documentation of company commitment must accompany the proposal. Proposals must be received by Cathy Adams (cathy.adams@rochester.edu, 585-275-3999). Questions may be addressed to her as well.

June 1: Un-meeting to foster new collaborations and ideas and explore innovative approaches to the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning at all stages of the translational science spectrum. Hosted by the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UR CTSI). 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saunders Research Building. Register by Monday, May 13.