What’s true for many faculty members is also true for college students. There’s no better time than summer—away from coursework and distractions of the school year—to take a deep dive into research.

The University is home to a robust summer research community of undergraduates that includes Rochester students as well as others from universities across the country who have come here to take advantage of the resources of a tier-one research university that places a high priority on research opportunities for undergraduates.

Rochester is particularly well equipped to deliver those opportunities across multiple disciplines. For example, two new federally funded REU (research experiences for undergraduates) programs this summer focus on biomedicine and on the computational study of music. They take full advantage of the faculty and resources of the University’s new Goergen Institute for Data Science, its world-renowned Eastman School of Music, and the close proximity of its top-ranked Medical Center to the River Campus.

“We’ve had classes with professors all through our education who have been telling us about their research, and we know they’re doing all these incredible projects, and yet it was just totally under our radar,” says Meghan Patrick, a rising senior, who is studying the flow of fluids in liquid metal batteries in the lab of Douglas Kelley, assistant professor of mechanical engineering.

“And now we’re involved in this whole other world that this university is so well known for.”

Summer of Research: Our latest Newscenter series showcases a cross-section of summer research conducted by undergraduates at Rochester and beyond.

Diving deep into the research experience

A summer research experience is an opportunity for students to:

• Develop problem-solving skills. Unlike solving a classroom problem, where the answer is known, research is “the process of creating new knowledge, of finding solutions where none are known,” says Wendi Heinzelman, dean of the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “That’s a very different skill from what you get in the classroom,” but one that is critical to almost any career path.
• Decide if research is something they really want to pursue. For many of the students, working in a lab full time can be an eye-opening experience. “You can spend a lot of hours trying to figure things out,” says Graham Palmer, a visiting computer science student from the University of Michigan, who participated in the Computational Methods for Understanding Music, Media, and Minds REU. “After working eight hours some days you feel like you haven’t accomplished much and you begin to wonder if you’re being productive. On the other hand, you are able to decide your own path.”
• Get a head start on applying for graduate school, and start honing the research skills they’ll need when they get there. Many of the students, for example, are benefiting from Graduate Record Exam prep courses offered by the University’s Kearns Center.

Read more here.

Antibiotics are lifesaving drugs, but overuse is leading to one of the world’s most pressing health threats: antibiotic resistance. Medical Center researchers are developing a tool to help physicians prescribe antibiotics to patients who really need them, and avoid giving them to individuals who don’t.

Scientists from the University’s National Institutes of Health-funded Respiratory Pathogens Research Center identified 11 genetic markers in blood that accurately distinguished between viral and bacterial infections (antibiotics help us fight bacterial infections, but aren’t effective and shouldn’t be used to treat viruses). The finding, published in the journal Scientific Reports, is important because physicians don’t have a good way to confirm bacterial infections like pneumonia and more often than not default to an antibiotic.

“It’s extremely difficult to interpret what’s causing a respiratory tract infection, especially in very ill patients who come to the hospital with a high fever, cough, shortness of breath, and other concerning symptoms,” said Ann R. Falsey, lead study author, professor, and interim chief of the Infectious Diseases Division at Strong Memorial Hospital. “My goal is to develop a tool that physicians can use to rule out a bacterial infection with enough certainty that they are comfortable, and their patients are comfortable, foregoing an antibiotic.”

Falsey is one of 10 semifinalists in the Antimicrobial Resistance Diagnostic Challenge, a competition sponsored by NIH and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to help combat the development and spread of drug resistant bacteria. She received $50,000 to continue her research and develop a prototype diagnostic test, such as a blood test, using the genetic markers her team identified.

A group of 94 adults hospitalized with lower respiratory tract infections were recruited to participate in Falsey’s study. The team gathered clinical data, took blood from each patient, and conducted a battery of microbiologic tests to determine which individuals had a bacterial infection (41 patients) and which had a non-bacterial or viral infection (53 patients). Thomas J. Mariani, professor of pediatrics and biomedical genetics, used complex genetic and statistical analysis to pinpoint markers in the blood that correctly classified the patients with bacterial infections 80 to 90 percent of the time.

“Our genes react differently to a virus than they do to bacteria,” said Mariani, a member of the Respiratory Pathogens Research Center (RPRC). “Rather than trying to detect the specific organism that’s making an individual sick, we’re using genetic data to help us determine what’s affecting the patient and when an antibiotic is appropriate or not.”

Falsey, co-director of the RPRC, and Mariani say that the main limitation of their study is the small sample size and that the genetic classifiers selected from the study population may not prove to be universal to all patients.

A patent application has been filed for their method of diagnosing bacterial infection. Edward Walsh, professor of infectious diseases, and Derick Peterson, professor of biostatics and computational biology, also contributed to the research.

Patients with advanced cancer who suffer cardiac arrest in the hospital have a survival rate of less than 10 percent—half the rate of other patients without cancer, according to a nationwide study led by the Medical Center.

The data helps to clear up some myths in medicine about cardiac arrest survival and can be used as a guidepost when hospitalized cancer patients and their families consider do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders, said Jeffrey T. Bruckel, a third-year postdoctoral fellow in cardiology, who led the research.

“We’re hopeful that our study in some way will help doctors and cancer patients make more informed decisions about the end of life,” Bruckel said. “It’s very important to have early, frank discussions around the goals of care.”

The study was published by the Journal of Oncology Practice in a special end-of-life care edition.

Researchers from Rochester and collaborating institutions used a nationwide resuscitation registry to evaluate survival after cardiac arrest of more than 47,000 people at 369 hospitals. Patients who were in for surgery (before, during, and after), emergency room treatment, rehabilitation, or treatment from cardiac catheterization labs or interventional radiology were excluded from the study, as were patients with implantable defibrillators. Of the 47,157 patients who experienced cardiac arrest, 6,585 or 14 percent had advanced cancer at the time of the arrest.

Researchers also looked at how resuscitation efforts occurred. One myth in medicine is that patients with advanced cancer receive less aggressive resuscitation care, but researchers found no evidence of that happening, Bruckel said.

In fact, the average time that doctors worked to resuscitate all patients (cancer and non-cancer) ranged from about 22 to 24 minutes, the study showed.

However, after cancer patients were successfully resuscitated, they more often signed DNR orders during the next 48 hours.

When outcomes of cancer and non-cancer patients were compared, results showed that 57.5 percent of the cancer patients were resuscitated successfully but only 9.6 percent survived to be discharged from the hospital, whereas 63 percent of the non-cancer patients were successfully resuscitated and 19.2 percent survived to the time of discharge.

Michael Tanenhaus, the Beverly Petterson Bishop and Charles W. Bishop Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, who is this year’s recipient of the prestigious David E. Rumelhart Prize, the premier award in the field of cognitive science. The prize, which includes a $100,000 monetary award, has been bestowed annually since 2001 to an individual or team making a significant contribution to the theoretical foundations of human cognition. Over the course of his 40-year career, Tanenhaus has focused his research on the mechanisms underlying spoken language and reading comprehension. He is best known as the creator of the Visual World Paradigm, which uses eye movements to study the mechanisms behind speech and language comprehension. This paradigm has been widely adopted for studying language development and disorders. Read more here.

Kathi Heffner, associate professor in the School of Nursing and the Department of Psychiatry, who is among a select group of scholars chosen to participate in a yearlong national geriatric leadership development program. The Emerging Leaders in Aging Program, sponsored by the Tideswell program at UC San Francisco, The American Geriatrics Society, and the Association of Directors of Geriatric Academic Programs, augments and leverages existing leadership skills to advance clinical, research, policy, and educational initiatives to improve the quality of care for older adults with chronic conditions and functional limitations living in our communities. Heffner was one of only five scholars accepted into the 2017-18 research cohort. Her project is related to her recent Incubator Award from the  Clinical and Translational Science Institute aimed at developing infrastructure for what she and her collaborators have named the Health Aging Research Program, or HARP.  Read more here.

Applications are being accepted through August 20 for five-day, creative problem-solving event to help early-career scholars develop transdisciplinary collaborative grant proposals to address the growing opioid abuse epidemic. The event,  Innovation Lab to Drive Early Career Grants, will be held in Buffalo, NY, from November 6 to 10.

Opioid-related deaths have quadrupled in the US over the past 15 years, mirroring the increase in legal opioid prescriptions dispensed. The National Institutes of Health will commit new funds to support investigation of this growing public health issue in hopes of attracting new researchers from many different disciplines to develop novel approaches to this critical problem.

Innovation Lab Buffalo will accept about 25 early stage investigators from Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) hub institutions or regional partners. According to the NIH, an early investigator is “within 10 years of completing his/her terminal research degree or is within 10 years of completing medical residency (or the equivalent).” Women and under-represented groups, including individuals with disabilities, are especially encouraged to apply. Travel and lodging will be provided.

To apply, complete the application form and submit by August 20. For more information, click here.

Light and Sound Interactive (LSI), will celebrate two of Rochester’s greatest strengths — imaging and music — at the downtown Riverside Convention Center Sept. 12-14.

The conference will focus on eight key areas of emerging technology:

• virtual and augmented reality,
• games and interactive media,
• cinema,
• music and audio engineering,
• imaging,
• displays and lighting,
• healthcare,
• optics and photonics.

The event, which includes presentations by University researchers, combines an interactive conference, tradeshow, career fair, live demos, museum tours, and an event for startup companies.

Visit the Light and Sound Interactive website for updates as new keynote speakers and events are added.

The Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Pilot Studies Program provides seed funding for highly innovative translational and clinical research that addresses translational research questions and provides insights mutual to other projects.

There are three categories of awards:

1. Investigator-initiated pilot studies for faculty ($50,000 maximum for one year).
2. Investigator-initiated pilot studies for trainees, defined as graduate students, medical students, residents, postdocs, or fellows in University of Rochester training programs ($25,000 maximum for one year).
3. UNYTE Translational Research Network grants ($50,000 maximum for one year).

Click here for the request for applications (RFA).

The CTSI Incubator Program supports “super-pilot projects,” two years in duration, that are intended to accelerate innovative scientific discovery in the life sciences and public health, leading to new independently funded research programs. Each award is funded at a maximum level of $125,000 per year for each of two years.

Click here for the RFA.

The deadline for submissions for both pilot studies and ‘super-pilot’ projects is August 28.

Chanse Hungerford, Optics, “Application of Localized Surface Plasmons for the Enhancement of Thin-Film Amorphous Silicon Solar Cells.” 1 p.m., Aug. 7, 2017. Goergen 109. Advisors: Philippe Fauchet and Gary Wicks.

Ian Perry, Microbiology & Immunology, “Analysis of the capacity of Salmonella Typhimurium to infect the human placenta.” Noon, August 23, 2017. Medical Center 3-7619 Upper Auditorium. Advisor: Shawn Murphy.

William Alexander, Genetics, “Oncogenic Mutations and Injury in the Mouse Liver.” 3 p.m., August 25, 2017. Adolph (Lower) Auditorium 1-7619. Advisor: Lei Xu.

Michael Rudy, Toxicology, “Early life iron deficiency changes the ratios between interneuron subtypes and synaptic activity in the adult brain.” 1:30 p.m., Sept. 6, 2017. Upper Auditorium 3-7619. Advisor: Margot Mayer-Proschel.

Aug. 10: Deadline to file applications for mini-grants from the Center for Community Health. Click here to apply, or contact Mary McDonald at (585) 224-3062 or by emailing  Mary_McDonald@urmc.rochester.edu.

Aug. 20: Deadline to apply for Innovation Lab to Drive Early Career Grants, a five-day creative problem-solving event to help early-career scholars develop transdisciplinary collaborative grant proposals to address the growing opioid abuse epidemic. To be held Nov. 6-10 in Buffalo. Click here to apply, and here for more information.

Aug. 23: Science, Technology, and Culture – a multidisciplinary reading group examining how science is shaped by the culture that surrounds it and how technological innovations change society. Join us for snacks and good conversation about Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly, 5 p.m., Humanities Center Lobby (Rush Rhees Library). Contact Emma_Grygotis@urmc.rochester.edu with any questions.

Aug. 28: Deadline to apply for Clinical and Translational Science Institute pilot study and ‘super-pilot’ Incubator awards. Click here for the request for pilot study applications, and here for the RFA for Incubator Program awards.

Aug. 29: Registration deadline for Department of Public Health Sciences three-credit course on participant recruitment and retention for health research studies. For more information, contact Pattie Kolomic, Graduate Programs Administrator, 275-7882.  Contact the Graduate Education Office for instructions on how to register.

Sept. 1: Deadline to apply for pilot funding from The Rochester Aging Research Center for projects in basic or geriatric aging research. Contact Dirk Bohmann or Anne Reed for more information.

Sept. 4: Series of talks by leading computer science theoreticians honoring Joel Seiferis, professor emeritus of computer science. Click here for more details and to register by Aug. 22.

Sept. 12-14: LIght and Sound Interactive conference, trade show, career fair, and presentations focusing on eight emerging technologies: virtual and augmented reality, games and interactive media, cinema, music and audio engineering, imaging, displays and lighting, health care, and optics and photonics. Riverside Convention Center. Click here for updates as new keynote speakers and events are added.

Sept. 25 to 29: Early Stage Faculty Boot Camp to help senior instructors and assistant professors identify the skills they need for successful career advancement. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visit the CTSI website for more details. Registration deadline is September 1.