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<?php
?>
<div class="two_col left">
<h2 class="sec_header">Shane Farritor</h2>
<p class="title">Associate Professor, <span class="major">Mechanical
Engineering</span></p>
<p class="pullquote">Dr. Farritor returned to his alma mater as a
faculty member in the Department of Mechanical Engineering in 1998. With
a grant from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), Farritor has
created an autonomous railcar that may determine whether a track issue
could cause a derailment. In another recent endeavor, Farritor has
collaborated with UNMC's Dmitry Oleynikov to create lipstick tube-sized
mini surgical robots that may help doctors make surgery less invasive so
patients can recover faster.</p>
</div>
<div class="two_col right">
<img src="../../images/Photos/Shane_Farritor.jpg" class="frame" alt="Shane Farritor" />
<p class="caption">Shane Farritor: Associate Professor, Lincoln, NE</p>
</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
<div class="two_col left">
<h3 class="sec_main">Derailing Derailments</h3>
<p>In a recent six-month period, four trains derailed on a major
coal line in western Nebraska. The cost: approximately $10 million.
Interestingly, three of the accident locations were tagged by a team of
UNL researchers as "trouble spots" for that section of rail, which
happens to support one of the highest transported tonnage anywhere in
the world. But what if many of the nation's derailments could be
predicted and prevented?</p>
<p>According to an innovative method created by Shane Farritor,
associate professor of mechanical engineering, better methods to prevent
such accidents are closer to reality. With a grant from the Federal
Railroad Administration (FRA), Farritor has created an autonomous
railcar that estimates the vertical stiffness of the tracks. These
measurements determine how hard or soft the track is, thereby measuring
whether certain areas will sink under heavy weight. According to
Farritor, it is both the soft sections of tracks and transitions between
soft and stiff track, which are commonly found at road crossings, that
cause problems. And while researchers have tried to determine ways to
measure the stiffness of these areas, none have been very successful.</p>
<p>Until now. The retrofitted coal hopper, donated from Omaha-based
Union Pacific Railroad, features an independent power system and solar
panels. The car is attached to a regular working train and sends a
horizontal red beam that uses cameras and lasers to estimate the
stiffness of the track. It even knows when to "wake up" and begin
working, according to Farritor, as it can sense movement of the train.
The on-board computer then sends the information wirelessly to the
research team.</p>
<p>Nationally, the Federal Railroad Administration also is looking
into this problem. "Due to increased energy demands, more coal than ever
is being transported across the country by rail, causing more and longer
trains," Farritor said. "The railroad industry is operating at a high
capacity."</p>
<p>He noted that only some derailments are caused by issues with the
track; others can be from mechanical problems with the railcars and
other causes. The researchers are trying to use the data gathered from
the autonomous rail car to create trending information to predict future
trouble spots. "I think we've gathered some pretty eye-opening data,"
Farritor said. "We are starting to generate more attention in the
industry."</p>
<p>Ultimately, Farritor hopes to find ways to accurately identify
and assess trouble areas to increase the safety of the railroad and
prevent accidents.</p>
<div class="zenbox soothing">
<h3>More Information on Shane Farritor</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://engineering.unl.edu/academicunits/MechanicalEngineering/faculty-staff/ShaneFarritor.shtml">Shane Farritor's Faculty Page</a></li>
<li><a href="http://robots.unl.edu">Robotics and Mechatronics</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="two_col right">
<h3 class="sec_main">Minimizing Recovery</h3>
<p>U.S. and Canadian government agencies used tiny surgical robots
developed by University of Nebraska researchers in an underwater
mission, training doctors to perform surgery in remote locations,
including outer space.</p>
<p>The 18-day NEEMO 9 expedition, associated with NASA, took place
63 feet below sea level in an underwater habitat 3.5 miles off Key
Largo, Fla. Four aquanauts (the undersea version of astronauts) each
spent two hours using the robots to perform tasks mimicking real
surgical procedures. NEEMO stands for NASA's Extreme Environment Mission
Operations. It was NASA's ninth NEEMO mission and at the time, the
longest Aquarius mission ever conducted.</p>
<p>The robots were co-designed by Shane Farritor, associate
professor of mechanical engineering, and Dmitry Oleynikov, director of
minimally invasive surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
</p>
<p>Farritor said that as NASA sends more astronauts to explore Mars
and the moon, surgical needs could arise during expeditions. The
underwater mission models the isolated environment in which astronauts
work. "We want to demonstrate that robots are useful in these
situations," said Farritor, who trained the NEEMO 9 crew to use the
robots.</p>
<p>Farritor, research assistant professor Steve Platt and graduate
students Mark Rentschler, Jason Dumpert, Kyle Berg and Amy Lehman
observed the mission via videoconference and collected data. Farritor
said UNL researchers are studying how long each procedure took and
whether scientists performed tasks efficiently. The information may help
them improve the robots or training methods.</p>
<p>The lipstick tube-sized mini surgical robots enter the body
through laparoscopic instruments, which require tiny incisions and allow
faster recovery for the patient. The mini robots have been featured in
numerous news stories since UNL and UNMC began working on them. The
researchers continue to explore new designs and uses for the robots.</p>
<p>One of the assigned tasks for the NEEMO 9 aquanauts was using the
mini-robots to perform a laparoscopic appendectomy on a surgical dummy.
The mission also was an experiment in telementoring. Through live
videoconferencing, Oleynikov gave the crew instructions to perform the
appendectomy using two of the mini-robots for assistance.</p>
<p>One robot has a camera that tilts and pans. The other robot is
mobile and can be directed to move within the abdominal cavity. Both
give the surgeon better views of the abdomen than traditional
laparoscopic cameras, which have limited mobility.</p>
<p>Platt said robots have potential for use in other remote
locations, such as battlefields or rural areas.</p>
<p>"The ability to bring surgical capabilities to areas that are not
accessible holds great promise for this technology," Platt said.</p>
<p>Farritor said that someday, doctors could use robots to perform
surgery off-location.</p>
<p>"Getting expertise in foreign environments is very useful, and I
think these robots have a lot of potential in space and on Earth," he
said.</p>
<p>The NEEMO 9 mission was a joint project of the Centre for Minimal
Access Surgery at McMaster University, University of Nebraska Center for
Advanced Surgical Technology, the U.S. Army Telemedicine and Advanced
Technology Research Center, the National Space Biomedical Research
Institute and NASA.</p>
</div>
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<?php
//connect to the database
mysql_connect(MYSQL_HOST, MYSQL_USER, MYSQL_PASS) or die('Could not connect to database');
mysql_select_db(MYSQL_DB) or die('Could not select database');
$q = "SELECT TRIM(firstName) as firstName, TRIM(lastName) as lastName, location, title, shortText, huskerInfo.mediumText, ID FROM ".THE_TABLE." order by lastName";
$result = mysql_query($q);
if (!$result) {
echo "Could not successfully run query: " . mysql_error();
exit;
}
if (mysql_num_rows($result) == 0) {
echo "No rows found";
exit;
}
$sPattern[0] = '/\s/m';
$sPattern[1] = '/,|\./';
$sReplace[0] = '-';
$sReplace[1] = '';
$huskerCounter = 1;
while ($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result)) {
if ($huskerCounter == 1) {
$float = "left";
}
elseif ($huskerCounter == 4) {
$float = "right";
$huskerCounter = 0;
}
else {
$float = "middle";
}
?>
<div class="col <?php echo $float;?>">
<div class="featuredWrapper">
<img src="images/thumbs/<?php echo preg_replace( $sPattern, $sReplace, $row["firstName"]."_".$row['lastName']);?>.jpg" class="frame" alt="<?php echo $row['firstName'].' '.$row['lastName'];?>" />
<p class="caption"><?php echo $row["location"];?></p>
<h4 class="sec_header"><?php echo $row['firstName'].' '.$row['lastName'];?></h4>
<p class="title"><?php echo $row['title'];?></p>
<p><?php echo $row['shortText'];?></p>
<p class="hoverElement"><?php echo substr($row['mediumText'], 0, 125);?>...<br />
<a href="husker/<?php echo preg_replace( $sPattern, $sReplace, $row["firstName"]."_".$row['lastName']);?>/">Continue reading...</a>
</p>
</div>
</div>
<?php
if ($huskerCounter == 0) {
echo "<div class='clear'></div>";
}
$huskerCounter++;
}
$columns = array(2 => "three_col", 3 => "two_col", 4 => "col");
?>
<div class="<?php echo $columns[$huskerCounter];?> right" style="height:325px;"><?php //echo($huskerCounter);?></div>
UNL/views/huskers/Ann_Chang-Barnes.php 0 → 100644
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<div class="two_col left">
<h2 class="sec_header"><?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?></h2>
<p class="title"><?php echo $row['title']?></p>
<p class="pullquote"><?php echo $row['mediumText']?></p>
</div>
<div class="two_col right">
<img src="../../images/Photos/<?php echo $_GET["husker"];?>.jpg" class="frame" alt="<?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?>" />
<p class="caption"><?php echo $row['firstName'].' '.$row['lastName'].': '.$row['title'].', '.$row['location'];?></p>
</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
<div class="two_col left">
<h3 class="sec_main">Ann Chang-Barnes plays Kapustin</h3>
<object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/VRtjLuRTbOM&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0" width="460" height="372"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VRtjLuRTbOM&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;rel=0" /><param name="FlashVars" value="playerMode=embedded" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /></object>
</div>
<div class="two_col right">
<h3 class="sec_main">About Ann</h3>
<p>Chang-Barnes is the founder of the Meadowlark Music Festival, the award-winning summer music festival that won national acclaim and was featured on National Public Radio. She brought world-class musicians and performers to Nebraska to participate in the week-long festival of concerts, classes, and other activities that attracted a broad audience to enjoy a variety of performances in Lincoln and other parts of the state.</p>
<p>In addition to founding the festival, she served as its executive and artistic director for six years. Chang-Barnes has also provided leadership in the arts entrepreneurship initiatives on campus. In the School of Music, Chang-Barnes coordinates the chamber music program, in partnership with the Chiara String Quartet.</p>
<p>
She is actively involved in the work of philanthropy by serving as Vice-Chair of Woods Charitable Fund, which supports projects that involve coalition-building, public education and advocacy to affect positive social change and improve opportunities for all citizens of Nebraska.</p>
<div class="zenbox">
<h5 class="sec_header">More Information on <?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?></h5>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://fpadirectory.unl.edu/user/achang-barnes1"><?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?>'s Faculty Page</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
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<div class="two_col left">
<h2 class="sec_header"><?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?></h2>
<p class="title"><?php echo $row['title']?></p>
<p class="pullquote"><?php echo $row['mediumText']?></p>
</div>
<div class="two_col right"><img
src='../../images/Photos/<?php echo $_GET["husker"];?>.jpg'
class="frame" alt='<?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?>' />
<p class="caption"><?php echo $row['firstName'].' '.$row['lastName'].': '.$row['title'].', '.$row['location'];?></p>
</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
<div class="two_col left">
<h3 class="sec_main">The Brain Doctor</h3>
<p>A turning point in the history of psychiatric research began on a
summer afternoon back in 1984, at the moment when Nancy Andreasen (B.A.
'58; Ph.D. '63) stretched out on the couch of a Magnetic Resonance
Scanner in the Department of Radiology at the University of Iowa.</p>
<p>"All set, Nancy?"</p>
<p>"I'm ready when you are" she replied.</p>
<p>After many years of relentless preparatory work using other
technologies, Andreasen's quest to hone in more precisely on the cause
of schizophrenia with a powerful new tool was about to begin.</p>
<p>"Okay," said the technician in the white lab coat, "I'm going to
slide you inside the scanner, Nancy. It's a little noisy, so don't be
surprised."</p>
<p>"No problem," she said.</p>
<p></p>
<p>The motorized couch slowly moved her entire body into the tightly
confined space of the scanner. Feeling a bit claustrophobic as she
looked at the ceiling only a few inches above her face, she closed her
eyes and concentrated on remaining as still as possible. The giant
scanner began to rumble and groan. Shaped like an enormous,
beige-painted doughnut, it rattled loudly for a few seconds, then
subsided into a high-pitched whining punctuated by occasional
thumping-and-bumping sounds.</p>
<p>During the next 60 minutes, she lay motionless inside the
doughnut - which generated a magnetic field around her head 100,000
times stronger that the magnetic field produced by the earth, lining up
the protons in her brain so that a very high-resolution,
three-dimensional image of it could be created.</p>
<p>It was an experience the current Andrew H. Woods Chair of
Psychiatry and director of the Mental Health Clinical Research Center at
the University of Iowa would never forget. Dr. Nancy Andreasen, the
former undergraduate and English Lit Ph.D. student at UNL (where her
maiden name had been Nancy Coover), became her own "first human guinea
pig" so that she could learn firsthand about the powerful new MRI
technology now used everywhere to help diagnose patients with cancer,
spinal injuries and other ailments. Her goal was to be the first person
to apply this technology to the study of mental illnesses so that she
could better understand how they arise in the brain.</p>
<p>Because it can generate crystal-clear, cross-sectional images in
any plane, and with increasingly thin slices (half a millimeter or
less), this revolutionary medical tool allows its operators to study
human tissues, organs and bones in enormous detail, and with the kind of
sharply focused precision that had only been dreamed of in the past.</p>
<p>For Andreasen, who earned an M.D. at the University of Iowa after
nailing down her English Ph.D. at UNL and publishing a pivotal book
about the work of the famed 17th-century English poet John Donne,
undergoing the MRI brain-scan 23 years ago was a way to take the first
steps toward pioneering a method that would revolutionize research in
her chosen medical field of psychiatry. She could foresee this tool
turning psychiatric research into a major discipline in the brain
sciences, more technically known as neuroscience.</p>
<p>But Andreasen hadn't come to the basement lab on this summer day
merely to satisfy her curiosity about the workings of the university's
brand-new MRI scanner. Far from it. After experiencing the new procedure
first, herself, she would lead 38 mental patients who had been diagnosed
with schizophrenia through the clattering MRI machine, en route to
obtaining the scientific data she needed for an important medical
discovery.</p>
<p>Her remarkable breakthrough: For the first time in the history of
medicine, thanks to the noisy MRI scanner, Andreasen published a
research study in which an investigator "quantitatively" measured the
key frontal lobe areas (the centers of memory, language and
problem-solving) of the brains of a group of living people with the
severe mental illness of schizophrenia. (Previously such precise
measurements of the brain could only be done after death, using post
mortem tissue). Andreasen had just launched a paradigm-shifting field in
psychiatry and neuroscience: in vivo anatomic neuroimaging. That study
of 38 patients, published by the American Medical Association's
authoritative Archives of General Psychiatry ("Structural Abnormalities
in the Frontal System in Schizophrenia: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Study," 1986,
http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/43/2/136), was the
first to show that the frontal lobes of patients with schizophrenia were
smaller and less developed than those of non-schizophrenics.</p>
<p>The implications of Andreasen's groundbreaking study were
significant, to say the least. For the first time since science had
begun to study schizophrenia - a devastatingly painful and disruptive
mental illness that affects nearly one percent of the U.S. population,
or about 2.5 million Americans - it was now evident, based on her 1986
MRI study, that schizophrenia was a "developmental" rather than a
"degenerative" disease.</p>
<p>In other words: Unlike mental illnesses such as Alzheimer's,
which usually occur after a patient has reached physical maturity and
then grow progressively worse over time, schizophrenia appears to begin
early in life during childhood or adolescence - as the crucially
important frontal lobes of the brain develop.</p>
<p>Andreasen's breakthrough-study triggered a wide-ranging "paradigm
shift" in science's understanding of the causes of schizophrenia,
according to many health researchers. Before that, most psychiatrists
had assumed that the disease was degenerative, and that it could occur
at any time in a patient's life span, after being triggered by causes
that appeared to be highly complex. While some leading researchers
believed that the agonizingly painful mental illness was caused by
flawed genes, others insisted it was primarily the result of
psychological trauma earlier in the patient's life. Still others
contended that the disease was caused by invading viruses or other
pathogens that attacked sensitive brain tissues.</p>
<p>But Andreasen's dramatic study helped to change all that. Based
on the frontal lobe measurements that she had obtained with the MRI
scanner, patients with schizophrenia were actually suffering from a
"structural abnormality" that had occurred during the early development
of their brains. Instead of seeing them as "insane" or "demented" or
"crazy," it was now possible to think of them simply as human beings who
were struggling with a physical ailment that happened to be located in
their brains.</p>
<p>"We now know that mental illnesses arise from the brain,"
Andreasen will tell you, when you ask her to describe the bottom-line
significance of her research, for which she received the National Medal
of Science from President Bill Clinton in 2000. "The brain is the most
important organ in our bodies. It's the source of our identity, the
source of everything we are - but it is also vulnerable to diseases,
just like all the other organs in our body.</p>
<p>"I hope my lasting contribution to psychiatry will be that I
quantified the fact that schizophrenia is a brain disease. Mental
illnesses should be understood as diseases, and they should be placed on
the same level as illnesses like diabetes or cancer. And from this point
on, patients who have diseases such as schizophrenia should no longer be
stigmatized, or thought of as 'crazy.'</p>
<p>"Nor should they be treated as if they were somehow suffering
from a mental or spiritual defect. Mental illness is a terribly painful
experience, and my life's work has been dedicated to trying to heal and
protect human beings who've had the misfortune to develop such illnesses
as depression, bi-polar disease and schizophrenia."</p>
<div class="zenbox">
<h5 class="sec_header">More Information on <?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?></h5>
<ul>
<li><a
href="http://www.unl.edu/scarlet/v12n16/v12n16features.html#anchor192049"><?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?>
in the news</a></li>
<li><a href="http://nancyandreasen.com"><?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?>'s Web site</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="two_col right">
<h3 class="sec_main">Passionately Interested in Wine, Art...and Raccoons</h3>
<p>Spend an afternoon with Nancy Andreasen at her simply but elegantly furnished condominium on the outskirts of Iowa City, and you'll find yourself in the presence of a high-octane thinker who seems to fiercely enjoy every aspect of her extraordinary life.
</p><p>
This globetrotting neuroscientist and author of 560 scientific papers and 15 books says she simply doesn't have time to get old - because she's far too busy doing psychiatric research, collecting art (she's got two Calder drawings on the wall and a Picasso print in the kitchen), gardening in her own backyard, and also tracking down the dozens of rare French vintages that she stacks on shelves in her 1,500-bottle wine cellar.
</p><p>
A tiny but athletic-looking woman with a commanding physical presence, Andreasen grew up as the "mighty mite tomboy" daughter of a U.S. Army officer, John Coover, who moved his growing family all around the country for more than a decade before finally settling down in Lincoln during Nancy's high school days.
</p><p>
"I was always the smartest kid in class during high school," she recalled with a laugh, during a recent interview over a cup of steaming cinnamon tea, "but I certainly don't take any credit for that, because I think it was mostly a matter of genetics. My Uncle Harry Coover was a brilliant chemical engineer - he invented Super Glue - and another close relative, J.E. Coover, wound up as a pioneering psychologist out at Stanford. And Robert Coover, the novelist? He's a cousin. So I guess I got my genes from a pretty creative bunch of people, and that was hardly my doing was it?"
</p><p>
Andreasen arrived on the UNL campus in the fall of 1955. During a lightning-fast undergrad career (she graduated in only three years), she decided to major in English and become a scholar who would write books on Renaissance literature, while also helping to "shape young minds in the classroom."
</p><p>
"I think I was really lucky to study at Nebraska when I did," she explained, while describing how she wound up with a "triple major" in English, history and philosophy, "because I got to take classes with some terrific professors who were totally committed to helping students learn and grow. My passions in those days were the French Revolution and European history, along with Renaissance poetry, and I wound up studying that stuff with some great teachers like (English professor) Robert Knoll and (former history professor) Bob Koehl.
</p><p>
"These guys were great teachers inside the classroom and great friends outside the classroom. To this day, I feel like I owe them a debt - because of the way they constantly encouraged me to challenge myself. Really, they gave me the intellectual foundation on which I built the rest of my life."
</p><p>
Still only 19 years old when she graduated with her B.A. from UNL, Andreasen spent a year studying the liberal arts at Harvard, before winning a coveted Fulbright Fellowship that allowed her to attend Oxford University in England for a year. Having by then married a recently graduated dental student, George Andreasen, '59, '63, (the father of her two now-adult daughters, Susan and Robin), she wound up following him back to UNL so that he could study orthodontics there.
</p><p>
By then, of course, the peripatetic Andreasen had also decided that she wanted to spend her life as a Renaissance Lit professor ... and so she plunged into several years of intense study for her Ph.D., which she received in 1963. But her life took a totally unexpected turn the next year, when she was a young English prof at the nearby University of Iowa. After the birth of her first child, Susan, she nearly died from a postpartum infection ... and suddenly began to have doubts about the importance of writing endless scholarly articles and books about English literature.
</p><p>
"I'd written this book about John Donne," she said with a wry grimace, remembering those early struggles, "and I nearly died giving birth. I was in the hospital for 10 days, and I wound up asking myself: Okay, I wrote the Donne book - but what is it going to do to change things? Nothing! How is it going to help people deal with the very real problems they will face in their very real lives?
</p><p>
"Those were some very tough questions, and I couldn't seem to answer them. And so I finally decided: 'Okay, penicillin saved my life, after I developed postpartum sepsis, so let me see if I can find something in medicine that might help me save some other lives.'
</p><p>
"For me, everything changed during that hospital stay. All at once, I realized that I wanted to go to medical school. And that was a huge challenge, because my husband later became ill and eventually died of multiple myeloma (a bone marrow cancer), and I wound up spending much of my early medical career as a single mother of two little girls."
</p><p>
Describing herself as a "risk-taker" whose "orientation was never to be safe," Andreasen recalled premedical studies and medical school at the University of Iowa (she got her M.D. in 1970) as a "wonderfully challenging and thrilling time. I absolutely loved physics and biochemistry, and I even enjoyed taking the advanced math classes that I hadn't really been prepared for."
</p><p>
She paused for a moment, and her eyes lit up in a joyful smile. "That's the thing about me - I really enjoy learning about everything. We've got a couple of raccoons that come around our backdoor every night, looking for the peanuts we leave out for them ... and now I find that I've become passionately interested in raccoons. Can you believe it? There's just so much out there to learn about, and I enjoy digging into every bit of it."
</p><p>
What followed Nancy Andreasen's graduation from U-Iowa Medical School in 1970 was an extraordinary career in which she has achieved half a dozen breakthroughs in the field of psychiatric research - while also writing endless books and articles and teaching psychiatry and research methodology to hundreds of medical students. Best known today for her pioneering neuroimaging studies of schizophrenia and manic-depressive disorder, Andreasen also distinguished herself by developing the first scales for measuring the intensity of both positive (psychotic) and negative (emotional and cognitive) symptoms in schizophrenia. And while serving as the longtime editor-in-chief of The American Journal of Psychiatry, she also found time to provide expert advice and counsel to the key U.S. task force that wrote the standard DSM-III and DSM-IV medical manuals used everywhere today in the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness. And then there were also the 15 books she wrote ... several of which (including "The Broken Brain" and "Brave New Brain") eventually became best-selling consumer guides to mental illness that are still in print and readily available today.
</p><p>
After her long and storied career, she could settle into the pleasant, easygoing lifestyle of the backyard gardener who spends her days puttering among the begonias and the dahlias, while slowly composing her memoirs.
</p><p>
No thanks, says Nancy Andreasen.
</p><p>
"Listen, I figure I've got at least 10 or 15 more years of hard work in me, and maybe more" growled the compassionate bulldog, as our lengthy interview finally came to an end. "These days, I'm more fascinated than ever by the workings of the human brain, and I'm especially excited about opportunities that we have to combine genomics and neuroimaging in order to really understand how brain dysfunctions in mental illness are caused and can perhaps be cured. I'm also excited about a new project I'm doing to understand how the brains of creative people work by using MR technology.
</p><p>
"This world of ours is full of fascinating things to study, and I feel fortunate that I remain eternally curious and have been given the opportunities to study them."
</p><p class="title">
Courtesy: Nebraska Alumni Association
</p>
</div>
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<div class="two_col left">
<h2 class="sec_header"><?php echo $firstName." ".$lastName?></h2>
<p class="title"><?php echo $row['title']?></p>
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</div>
<div class="two_col right">
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<p class="caption"><?php echo $row['firstName'].' '.$row['lastName'].': '.$row['title'].', '.$row['location'];?></p>
</div>
<div class="clear"></div>
<h3 class="sec_main">About Nithal</h3>
<div class="two_col left">
<p>Nithal Kuwa, a graduate student in biological sciences, received a Fulbright grant which took her to Zambia.</p>
<p>Her research could eventually have a profound effect on the medical treatment of the more than 1.8 million children in sub-Saharan Africa who are living with HIV and AIDS.</p>
<p>Kuwa has spent the last three years conducting research in virology in the lab of Charles Wood, professor in the school of biological sciences and director of the Nebraska Center for Virology.</p>
<p>Kuwa traded one laboratory for another as she undertook her Fulbright research in Wood's lab in Zambia. She spent her time studying HIV drug resistance in children, and volunteering at a Voluntary Counseling and Testing Center.</p>
<p>"What I am doing will be important for the development of better drug regimens for children," Kuwa said. "I am looking at children going through drug failure to see if this drug failure is due to the occurrence of drug resistant viruses and, if so, did these viruses emerge because of prophylactic therapy they received earlier during their childhood? If I find that the kids who got prophylactics have higher chances of developing drug resistance, then doctors can use that information to change their medication regimens."</p>
<p>Kuwa's time in Zambia represents a logical follow-up to her work in Wood's lab at UNL. Wood oversees epidemiological studies on HIV and Human Herpesvirus 8, focusing on transmission of these viruses and the roles they play in immunosuppression and cancer development. Kuwa's thesis research explored the body's immune response to Human Herpesvirus 8.</p>
<p>Key to understanding Kuwa's academic and career goals is to glimpse back at her childhood. Born in Sudan at the beginning of its civil war, she spent much of her youth living as a refugee in Ethiopia and Kenya, separated for years at a time from her father, a highly regarded leader of the southern Sudanese rebellion.</p>
<p>Supported by the United Nations, Kuwa and her siblings attended school in Kenya, and her father visited the family whenever he could. In 2000, Kuwa, her mother and her siblings were granted asylum in the United States.</p>
<p>"Lincoln wasn't a choice, it was picked for us," she said. "I had never heard of Nebraska before. Our only concept of America came from TV, so we had seen New York or L.A., or other cities with high-rise buildings. When we got here we thought, 'It's like we're in a village.' And not too long after we arrived, it started snowing. That was the first snow we'd ever seen."</p>
<p>A few months after her arrival in Lincoln, Kuwa's father died from prostate cancer. His death was a devastating loss not only for his family, but for the country of Sudan.</p>
<p>At the same time, Kuwa was acclimating to culture shock at Lincoln High, which was different from her Kenyan school in countless ways. Still, she loved her teachers and classes, and excelled academically. She graduated in 2002.</p>
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<p>Although she knew for years that she wanted to pursue a medical career, Kuwa's graduate emphasis on epidemiology was, initially, unplanned. As an undergraduate, she majored in biopsychology at Nebraska Wesleyan University. The summer after her freshman year, she volunteered at a hospital in Sudan, and saw firsthand the abysmal state of medical care in that country. Although she had often dreamed of being a doctor, she realized that by pursuing a graduate degree in public health, she could help "fix the whole system."</p>
<p>A couple years later, she toured UNL's Beadle Center, and met Wood for the first time. That summer she worked in his lab as a McNair Scholar, and Wood then invited her back for her senior year. As her college graduation approached, he encouraged her to pursue a master's degree at UNL.</p>
<p>She'll assess the long-term health of children born to women with HIV, many of whom were given prophylactic drugs as infants in an attempt to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus. This process, she said, confers a high level of drug resistance upon the kids. Kuwa wants to learn if children who took these drugs develop resistance to medical treatment if they are treated for HIV later in their lives.</p>
<p>"It'll be very heartbreaking work at the counseling center, actually seeing the people who are infected with this virus," she said. "But then again, what I'm doing brings hope for the future. I hope that my being there and seeing their faces will give me motivation to put even more into my work. Hopefully in the future I'll make a difference in someone's life."</p>
<p>Following her stay in Zambia, Kuwa hopes to live in a French-speaking country to hone her French language skills, and then plans to pursue her doctorate in public health. Longer term, she would like to work for the Centers for Disease Control and live and travel throughout Africa. Eventually, she will return to Sudan.</p>
<p>"Because my dad was so involved with political issues in Sudan, I feel there is almost an obligation for us to go back," she said. "His death strengthened my desire to work harder in life and give back to Sudan someday. I think this Fulbright is a step toward that."</p>
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<li><a href="http://www.unl.edu/virologycenter">Nebraska Center for Virology</a></li>
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<h3 class="sec_main">Derailing Derailments</h3>
<p>In a recent six-month period, four trains derailed on a major
coal line in western Nebraska. The cost: approximately $10 million.
Interestingly, three of the accident locations were tagged by a team of
UNL researchers as "trouble spots" for that section of rail, which
happens to support one of the highest transported tonnage anywhere in
the world. But what if many of the nation's derailments could be
predicted and prevented?</p>
<p>According to an innovative method created by Shane Farritor,
associate professor of mechanical engineering, better methods to prevent
such accidents are closer to reality. With a grant from the Federal
Railroad Administration (FRA), Farritor has created an autonomous
railcar that estimates the vertical stiffness of the tracks. These
measurements determine how hard or soft the track is, thereby measuring
whether certain areas will sink under heavy weight. According to
Farritor, it is both the soft sections of tracks and transitions between
soft and stiff track, which are commonly found at road crossings, that
cause problems. And while researchers have tried to determine ways to
measure the stiffness of these areas, none have been very successful.</p>
<p>Until now. The retrofitted coal hopper, donated from Omaha-based
Union Pacific Railroad, features an independent power system and solar
panels. The car is attached to a regular working train and sends a
horizontal red beam that uses cameras and lasers to estimate the
stiffness of the track. It even knows when to "wake up" and begin
working, according to Farritor, as it can sense movement of the train.
The on-board computer then sends the information wirelessly to the
research team.</p>
<p>Nationally, the Federal Railroad Administration also is looking
into this problem. "Due to increased energy demands, more coal than ever
is being transported across the country by rail, causing more and longer
trains," Farritor said. "The railroad industry is operating at a high
capacity."</p>
<p>He noted that only some derailments are caused by issues with the
track; others can be from mechanical problems with the railcars and
other causes. The researchers are trying to use the data gathered from
the autonomous rail car to create trending information to predict future
trouble spots. "I think we've gathered some pretty eye-opening data,"
Farritor said. "We are starting to generate more attention in the
industry."</p>
<p>Ultimately, Farritor hopes to find ways to accurately identify
and assess trouble areas to increase the safety of the railroad and
prevent accidents.</p>
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<li><a href="http://robots.unl.edu">Robotics and Mechatronics</a></li>
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<h3 class="sec_main">Minimizing Recovery</h3>
<p>U.S. and Canadian government agencies used tiny surgical robots
developed by University of Nebraska researchers in an underwater
mission, training doctors to perform surgery in remote locations,
including outer space.</p>
<p>The 18-day NEEMO 9 expedition, associated with NASA, took place
63 feet below sea level in an underwater habitat 3.5 miles off Key
Largo, Fla. Four aquanauts (the undersea version of astronauts) each
spent two hours using the robots to perform tasks mimicking real
surgical procedures. NEEMO stands for NASA's Extreme Environment Mission
Operations. It was NASA's ninth NEEMO mission and at the time, the
longest Aquarius mission ever conducted.</p>
<p>The robots were co-designed by Shane Farritor, associate
professor of mechanical engineering, and Dmitry Oleynikov, director of
minimally invasive surgery at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
</p>
<p>Farritor said that as NASA sends more astronauts to explore Mars
and the moon, surgical needs could arise during expeditions. The
underwater mission models the isolated environment in which astronauts
work. "We want to demonstrate that robots are useful in these
situations," said Farritor, who trained the NEEMO 9 crew to use the
robots.</p>
<p>Farritor, research assistant professor Steve Platt and graduate
students Mark Rentschler, Jason Dumpert, Kyle Berg and Amy Lehman
observed the mission via videoconference and collected data. Farritor
said UNL researchers are studying how long each procedure took and
whether scientists performed tasks efficiently. The information may help
them improve the robots or training methods.</p>
<p>The lipstick tube-sized mini surgical robots enter the body
through laparoscopic instruments, which require tiny incisions and allow
faster recovery for the patient. The mini robots have been featured in
numerous news stories since UNL and UNMC began working on them. The
researchers continue to explore new designs and uses for the robots.</p>
<p>One of the assigned tasks for the NEEMO 9 aquanauts was using the
mini-robots to perform a laparoscopic appendectomy on a surgical dummy.
The mission also was an experiment in telementoring. Through live
videoconferencing, Oleynikov gave the crew instructions to perform the
appendectomy using two of the mini-robots for assistance.</p>
<p>One robot has a camera that tilts and pans. The other robot is
mobile and can be directed to move within the abdominal cavity. Both
give the surgeon better views of the abdomen than traditional
laparoscopic cameras, which have limited mobility.</p>
<p>Platt said robots have potential for use in other remote
locations, such as battlefields or rural areas.</p>
<p>"The ability to bring surgical capabilities to areas that are not
accessible holds great promise for this technology," Platt said.</p>
<p>Farritor said that someday, doctors could use robots to perform
surgery off-location.</p>
<p>"Getting expertise in foreign environments is very useful, and I
think these robots have a lot of potential in space and on Earth," he
said.</p>
<p>The NEEMO 9 mission was a joint project of the Centre for Minimal
Access Surgery at McMaster University, University of Nebraska Center for
Advanced Surgical Technology, the U.S. Army Telemedicine and Advanced
Technology Research Center, the National Space Biomedical Research
Institute and NASA.</p>
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