Hunting is solution to stem growing deer population

Howard Kilpatrick gestures to show the level of damage done by deer to an evergreen.

Photo by Peter Morenus

A doctoral student in natural resources management and engineering who studied options for slowing the rapid growth of the deer population in Connecticut says more hunting appears to be the best solution.

Howard Kilpatrick, who works as a project manager for the state Department of Environmental Protection, draws his conclusion from a three-year study he conducted of deer management in the town of Greenwich, which has one of the highest deer densities in the state.

“Many of the highest deer densities in the state are in areas where there is the least amount of hunting,” Kilpatrick says, noting that because it is one of the most developed towns, the ability to hunt deer in Greenwich is minimal compared with less populated areas in northern Connecticut.

The number of deer in Connecticut has skyrocketed in recent years.

Kilpatrick says deer are increasingly regarded as a nuisance because of the damage they wreak on the landscape, the spread of Lyme disease from deer ticks and the risk of auto accidents involving deer.

Even with opposition to hunting, people become more supportive when they are personally affected by having a child with Lyme disease or hitting a deer with a car, he adds.

Deer can live up to 18 years, and an adult doe generally gives birth to two fawns a year.

Based on his study, Kilpatrick recommends that towns develop local area-specific deer management plans, encourage both gun and bow hunting and provide more information to property owners about deer management and hunting.

Professor provides insider’s view of FDA operations

Students studying with John Vernon, assistant professor of finance who is an expert in the financial aspects of the pharmaceutical industry, are gaining an extraordinary insider’s view of how economic policy is developed at the highest levels of the federal government.

Photo by Peter Morenus

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Vernon spends one week each month on loan to the Federal Drug Administration in Washington, D.C., as a senior economic policy advisor to the FDA and to the agency’s commissioner, Andrew C. von Eschenbach.

Vernon, who also holds a joint faculty appointment in community medicine at the UConn Health Center, has testified before committees of the U.S. Congress about his research on the economic consequences of re-importing U.S. drugs from other nations, specifically the regulation of drug prices from nations that have cost controls on drugs.

Initially, the FDA had tried to entice Vernon about taking a full-time position. “I did not want to leave academia, but I was very interested in government policy and working with the FDA,” he says.

Vernon says his students enjoy hearing about how the theories taught in the classroom play out in actual practice.

“It’s enriching what we teach in the classroom theoretically. The real beneficiaries of my work are UConn students,” he says.

“They get to see how the FDA operates and how some of the things I teach in classroom are actually implemented on Capitol Hill. It’s really exciting to me, personally.”

Another beneficial aspect of Vernon’s FDA work is collaboration with other UConn faculty in related disciplines.

He works with faculty at the School of Pharmacy and at the UConn Health Center.

“The School of Pharmacy is one of the best in the country. Their expertise is second to none. The collaborations have been very symbiotic and synergistic,” he says.

“There are opportunities for additional research involving the business school, the pharmacy school and the Health Center. It’s unique to UConn, with an extraordinary pool of resources with respect to health care economics and finance. ”

Oral pathology biopsy service helps dental patients

Ellen Eisenberg in her lab at the UConn Health Center.

A $500,000 gift from Straumann USA will help UConn's new Center for Implant and Reconstructive Dentistry expand its curriculum in the rapidly growing field of dental implant therapy.

The donation from Swiss-based Straumann, a world leader in dental implant and oral tissue regeneration products, will help fund research into new dental implant technology. It also will strengthen patient care and education programs at the School of Dental Medicine, which consistently ranks among the top three dental schools in the nation.

Straumann also is providing dental implants, prosthetic components, surgical and prosthetic instrumentation, training resources, and materials to support dental implant curricula.

"Straumann places high value and high priority on education and research in implant dentistry," says Thomas Taylor, head of the UConn Health Center 's department of oral rehabilitation, biomaterials and skeletal development.

"Their willingness to invest in our center clearly demonstrates the value they believe we can bring to education and research efforts."

Dental implant therapy has been growing in importance internationally as a preferred alternative to tooth replacement and other conventional restorations.

As a result of Straumann's support, UConn dental students will have the enhanced capability to place and/or restore dental implants during their clinical studies.

This provides students with the tools they need to perform the latest dental implant procedures.

"The dental school is currently recognized as a center of excellence in dental implantology," says Peter Robinson, dean of the School of Dental Medicine.

"The support from Straumann will allow us to move to the next level."

The Center for Implant and Reconstructive Dentistry will be an integral part of the UConn Health Center 's Musculoskeletal Institute, serving both students and practicing dentists as a training center and support network for the advancement of dental implant studies in Connecticut and the surrounding region.

Atkins Foundation gift to expand nutrition research

A $450,000 gift from the Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation will support groundbreaking nutrition research being conducted by members of the department of kinesiology in the Neag School of Education.

Robert C. Atkins, M.D. (1930-2003). The Dr. Robert C. Atkins Foundation funds independent scientific research examining the role of metabolism and nutrition in obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other serious health concerns.

The gift recognizes the scientific contributions of Jeff Volek, assistant professor of kinesiology, in the area of low-carbohydrate diets.

It will enhance the research capabilities of UConn’s Human Performance Lab by providing additional funding for program support, graduate assistantships and equipment.

“This gift will help us further expand our research into the many facets of carbohydrate restriction for the treatment of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and related metabolic syndromes,” Volek says.

“This support will allow us to enhance our laboratory capabilities and facilitate our ability to make breakthrough discoveries in nutrition research.”

For the past seven years, Volek, kinesiology professor William Kraemer, and nutritional sciences professor Maria-Luz Fernandez have compared the effects of a carbohydrate-restricted diet and a standard low-fat diet on weight loss and a variety of risk factors for diabetes and heart disease.

Volek has found that a carbohydrate-restricted diet is considerably more effective than a low-fat diet in improving a host of cardiovascular risk factors, especially those associated with metabolic syndrome or insulin resistance syndrome.

Although very low-carbohydrate diets had been viewed primarily as a weight loss tool and associated with concerns about heart disease due to potential high dietary fat intake, Volek’s work has shown that carbohydrate restriction is beneficial for cardiovascular markers even in the absence of weight loss and in the presence of higher fat intake.

Building on previous research, Volek and his colleagues also have conducted research into personalized diet prescriptions based on genetic data and their potential for the prevention and treatment of disease.

The Neag School is matching a portion of the Atkins Foundation’s gift by providing full funding for a graduate assistantship for each of the three years covered by the gift.

$2M grant aims to improve state transportation

A recent view of commuter traffic approaching Hartford during the morning rush hour.

Photo by Peter Morenus

UConn’s Connecticut Transportation Institute (CTI), has received a $2 million grant from the U. S. Department of Transportation to explore new ways of improving the state’s transportation system.

The grant will establish a University Transportation Center (UTC) at UConn.

“CTI is working on some exciting and innovative projects, and this grant will help our state continue to break new ground,” Gov. M. Jodi Rell said in announcing the grant with U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons.

“From the development of smart growth planning tools and expanding mass transit to promoting strategies that will make our air cleaner and our traffic flow smoother, the institute is a national leader. These are the ideas that will make Connecticut’s economy healthy and strong over the long-term. These are the ideas that promote job creation and enhance the quality of life in Connecticut.”

The University Transportation Center will be overseen by co-directors Norman Garrick and John Ivan, civil and environmental engineering professors in the School of Engineering, which is home to CTI.

Garrick says he expects UTC initially to assess how other states have developed improved statewide transportation systems and how Connecticut compares with them as a first step toward creating new plans for the Nutmeg State.

One issue to resolve is how to better coordinate state and local agencies that have jurisdiction over various parts of the transportation development process, Garrick says.

He notes that currently the state Department of Transportation has responsibility for transportation system maintenance and construction while municipal governments control land use.

“Our goal is to serve as a clearing house and think tank that studies how to develop an approach to transportation that addresses smart growth,” he says.

“We’ll be going back to the old style of development, focusing on walking communities built around transportation systems.”

Garrick says he hopes to have the initial assessments completed sometime next year.

Top curator named to lead Benton Museum of Art

Steven Kern, a curator from one of the top art museums in the United States, has been named the new director of the William Benton Museum of Art at UConn.

A New England native who previously was curator of paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass., Kern arrives in Storrs after serving nine years as curator of European art at the San Diego Museum of Art.

Photo by Peter Morenus

“I look forward to building on the Benton’s tradition of excellence, its achievements and best practices and its upward trajectory,” Kern says.

“Museums are special places with the power to excite, inspire, educate and even to transform lives. I happily accept the charge to strengthen the Benton’s position at the core of the University, to serve the student body and faculty and to reach the residents of the state of Connecticut and visitors from surrounding communities.”

During his tenure at the San Diego Museum of Art, Kern rekindled interest in the 80-year-old museum’s permanent collections and arranged exhibitions that attracted as many as 200,000 patrons annually.

Kern says he plans to raise the museum’s national and international profile.

“During the past two years, the William Benton Museum of Art has become the artistic and cultural heart of the campus. With the opening of the Evelyn Simon Gilman Gallery, the Human Rights Gallery, Café Muse and The Store at the Benton, the Benton Museum plays an important role in the cultural and aesthetic development of UConn’s campus,” says David G. Woods, dean of the School of Fine Arts.

“Steven Kern brings a rich background of European art to the Benton.

He will undoubtedly expand and enhance our programs and will contribute significantly to the future development of our collection and our activities at the museum.”

The Benton has a permanent collection of more than 6,000 works.

During the past five years, the museum has doubled its number of annual patrons from 20,000 to 40,000.

Responding to changing legal needs

The School of Law will open a new legal clinic this spring, providing students an opportunity to represent clients in cases involving intellectual property law, a growing area of legal practice that has resulted from the expansion of information technology.

“In our post-industrial society, where the forms of intellectual property have become increasingly varied and complex, the law in this area has truly burgeoned,” says Paul Chill, professor and associate dean of the law school for academic affairs.

The clinic is the result of state legislation that established a Center for Entrepreneurship at UConn with a mandate for an intellectual property legal clinic.

The Center for Entrepreneurship will be a joint effort with UConn’s School of Business and the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology in East Hartford, where the clinic will be housed.

“The partnership with the business school will enable students from the different disciplines to work together to solve problems,” says Kurt Strasser, interim dean of the law school.

“When law students are able to work with business students on all aspects of a client’s problems, both groups of students see them as a whole, rather than fragmented by the different academic disciplines.”

Chill believes the intellectual property clinic will build on the law school’s existing strengths in clinical legal education and provide valuable opportunities for students, which also benefits the community.

“Clinical legal education is the most important and positive development in legal pedagogy in the last half-century,” he says.

“In a law school clinic, students represent actual clients under close supervision by faculty members. There is no better way of learning the complex and varied set of skills it takes to practice law. Clinics are crucibles of learning in which theory and practice interact on a daily basis, yielding rich insights for students and faculty members.”

iPods help students learn foreign languages
Taking a historic view of Iran’s struggle for democracy

iPods help students learn foreign languages

Max Gigle, a sophomore political science and international relations major, uses a podcast and “Alif Baa,” a computer learning program as part of his Arabic studies in the critical languages program in the Multimedia Language Center.

Photo by Jordan Bender

In addition to textbooks, last spring students studying Chinese and Arabic began using iPods — the ubiquitous music players—to allow them more frequent exposure to the language they are trying to learn.

The iPods — provided by the University and used in conjunction with laptop computers, language software and other technology tools—are helping students with what are considered “level 4” language studies because they take three to four times longer to learn than languages such as French or Spanish.

Currently, the iPods and laptops are only for students of Arabic and Chinese.

The iPods are loaded with language files that reinforce and expand what the students learn in weekly instruction with a native-speaking conversation partner.

“You need as many resources as you can get.

The iPod makes language studies easier,” says Michael Crutchfield ’07 (CLAS), a senior majoring in political science and sociology, about studying languages.

He is studying Mandarin Chinese so he can teach English in China after graduation.

The iPods and other materials were purchased with a $475,000 grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research and development arm of the U.S. Department of Defense.

DARPA promotes learning of languages in areas where the U.S. has strategic interests.

The students’ self-instruction is further bolstered by a variety of resources, including computer labs, wireless iBook laptops, digital cameras, Web-based language programs and iChat instant messaging.

Students must also record and publish their own podcast — an Internet-based digital broadcast — to demonstrate their language proficiency.

The goal of the podcast is to help students more quickly learn languages that traditionally have not been part of a college curriculum.

The use of podcasts and various computer technologies allows instructors to hear students’ progress with the language more easily and remediate problems during the semester, says Barbara Lindsey, director of UConn’s Multimedia Language Center in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages.

Taking a historic view of Iran’s struggle
for democracy

With Iran in the headlines in recent months as part of the turmoil in the Middle East, Fakhreddin Azimi, UConn associate professor of history, finds himself pulled from his historical studies and research into contemporary events.

Born in Iran, Azimi was educated in the United Kingdom and is a recognized authority on the history of modern Iran.

He has been at UConn since 1991, where one of his key areas of research is the 100-year-long quest for democratic rule in the country of his birth.

He teaches undergraduate courses on the Middle East in both medieval and modern times, as well as a graduate seminar that explores the relationship between history and the social sciences.

Azimi acknowledges that “democracy” and “Iran” may not often be linked in the minds of evening television news viewers but, he says, democratic institutions and aspirations have been part of the Iranian political landscape since 1906.

In class, he encourages students to view today’s events through the prism of history, taking into account 100 years of seesawing between parliamentary and authoritarian rule.

Despite the changes in Iran’s governance over time, Azimi believes there are good reasons to be optimistic about the future of Iran, in large part because of young people.

“The younger generation will not indefinitely tolerate being ruled by aging ayatollahs,” he says.

“Modernity has spread, young people follow international trends, and they have a spirit that cannot be suppressed.”

Azimi says many of the structures of Iran’s government have counterparts in the United States, including the three branches of government, and he notes that much of the internal debate in Iran over the past 100 years touches on individual rights and other issues that were debated during the American Revolution.

Health Center pilots March of Dimes NICU project

The neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the UConn Health Center is the first site in Connecticut selected for an innovative March of Dimes project.

Families are encouraged to participate in their babies' care at the Health Center's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. These efforts will be bolstered by the March of Dines and the New Alliance Foundation.

Photo by Lanny Nagler

The March of Dimes NICU Family Support project is a national program launched in 2004 with the goal of placing and funding a family support specialist in at least one NICU in every state in the country.

The March of Dimes supports research into the causes of premature births, which account for about 12 percent of all births every year. In nearly half of all cases, the cause is unknown.

The NICU Family Support program was designed to meet the needs of families throughout hospitalization, during the transition home, and in the event of a newborn death.

The project’s components include working with March of Dimes volunteers who provide parent-to-parent support including education and specially tailored information and support for siblings and extended family.

“There’s no question that the experience of having a baby in the NICU can be overwhelming,” says Steven Strongwater, hospital director at the UConn Health Center.

“That’s why we take many steps to help minimize the stress of this experience for parents and babies alike. The NICU Family Support designation is one more program we are pleased to offer families.”

Strongwater says a key factor for the March of Dimes to work with the UConn Health Center is that it is a nationally recognized leader in an infant-and-family-centered approach to care that places special emphasis on the role of parents in supporting their baby’s development.

Jeanne Lattanzio has been named the first UConn family support specialist.

She began her career as a pediatric and neonatology nurse before moving to hospital administration.

She says she has returned to direct patient care to do more to help families.

“I feel like I’ve come full circle,” says Lattanzio, noting she is the grandmother of an 8-year-old boy who started life in a NICU.

Helping older adults improve health literacy

Several scientific studies in recent years indicate that older adults say they use twice as many over-the-counter medicines as drugs prescribed by their doctors.

Research being conducted at the School of Nursing aims to help older adults avoid adverse drug interactions resulting from self-medication.

An interdisciplinary team led by Patricia J. Neafsey, professor of nursing and co-director of UConn’s Center for Health Communications Design Research, hopes to assist older adults to avoid potential harmful drug interactions, improve their overall health literacy and keep their blood pressure in check.

The research, which began last year, is being conducted with a three-year, $1 million grant funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The research team includes health care professionals and UConn doctoral students representing a variety of disciplines within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Schools of Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy.

The disciplines include communication sciences, computer science, graphic design, pharmacoeconomics, primary care nursing and medicine.

Previous research by Neafsey and her colleagues, for example, suggests that older adults with hypertension tend to self-medicate with over-the-counter drugs like pain relievers, cold remedies and antacids.

Frequent use of seemingly harmless medications, such as ibuprofen, can have negative consequences in people with hypertension because they can counteract medications used to treat high blood pressure.

Neafsey adds that improvements to health literacy empower people to take better care of themselves and can reduce their risk of additional health complications and avoidable hospitalizations.

Improvements to health literacy are expected to reduce health care costs due to a reduction in serious, perhaps potentially life-threatening, complications.

Neafsey says working with an interdisciplinary team provides advantages to researchers working on a common solution to a problem.

“You get a much better result if you have many pairs of eyes with different training and different ways of looking at the problems to build solutions that really work,” she says.

Manautou honored by Society of Toxicology

José Manautou, left, with a student in his lab at the School of Pharmacy.

Photo by Peter Morenus

José Manautou always had an inclination for science, particularly biology and chemistry. He was fascinated by the biology of the body, human diseases and the treatment of disease.

“Pharmacy was a good choice for me. You’re still involved with the treatment of patients, and it gives you a great foundation for jumping into a professional Ph.D. program and becoming a scientist,” says Manautou, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences, who earlier this year received the 2006 Achievement Award of the Society of Toxicology for significant contributions to the field of toxicology.

In its citation, the society notes his “dedication to the training of young scientists is unmatched” and that “his outstanding research and professional accomplishments place him among an elite few in the field of toxicology.”

A member of the UConn faculty for 10 years, Manautou is one of the leading researchers in the field of toxicology, focusing on understanding how the interaction of chemicals alters the functioning of the human liver, with an emphasis on how a damaged liver can repair itself.

His research is funded with a four-year grant from the National Institutes of Health.

“The liver is interesting in comparison to other organs,” he explains.

“You can damage the liver, and if the damage is not overwhelming, with time, it repairs itself and it appears normal. We’re trying to study aspects of this mechanism.”

Manautou has built his research on long-time study of the drug acetaminophen, known commercially as Tylenol, which is safe when taken in recommended doses but can produce toxic by-products in the liver when consumed in higher quantities.

Abuse of the drug can occur when patients take the suggested dosage and then use another over- the-counter medication that also includes acetaminophen, unknowingly raising the potential for toxicity.

He has been involved with the Society of Toxicology since 1988, serves on grant review committees for the National Institutes of Health and recently was named associate editor of The Journal of Toxicology and Applied Pharmacy, a premier international journal in the field.

Post-master’s certificates address emerging needs

Two new post-master’s certification programs are helping social workers in Connecticut to gain specialized skills in two critical areas of need — clinical supervision and adoption services.

Both programs are being offered in response to specific needs identified by longtime collaborators with the UConn School of Social Work — the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF).

The certificate in clinical supervision addresses the challenges and complexities of varied supervisory positions found in clinical settings in either public or private agencies, as well as in private practice.

“The program covers specific content typically not included in master’s programs.

The Connecticut chapter of NASW contacted us about collaboration on the program.

As the state’s premier MSW program, we thought it was mutually beneficial to join ranks,” says Reesa Olins, director of UConn’s continuing education section of the School of Social Work.

The 40-hour program includes classroom sessions and online course resources to help accommodate professional students’ work schedules.

Olins says the new adoption services program reflects the increasing number of families who are adopting children.

There are 2.1 million adopted children in the United States, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and about 6,000 in Connecticut, according to the Casey Center for Effective Child Welfare Practice in New Haven.

“One of the goals is to provide a wider group of providers so DCF can refer clients to social services in the community,” says Olins.

The program is jointly operated with Southern Connecticut State University in New Haven.

UConn and SCSU each have 15 students enrolled, and all students periodically convene for guest faculty presentations.

The 45-hour program curriculum includes in-class sessions and online course resources and addresses a wide range of issues in adoption, such as development of adoptive families and trans-racial issues.