A team of biologists at LSUS, working with a Teaching Enhancement Grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents, is developing an updated and revised Principles of Genetics Laboratory in the LSUS College of Sciences.
Dr. Tara Williams-Hart, assistant professor of biological sciences; Drs. Stephen Banks and Cran Lucas, professors of biological sciences, and Dr. Stephanie Aamodt, associate professor and chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, are the principal investigators working to upgrade the laboratory, which is used, Williams-Hart says, to "teach students the proper way to conduct hypothesis-based research using a genetics approach."

"As part of a larger effort to improve the training of our students, including students preparing for medical professions," Williams-Hart says, "LSUS is moving to significantly strengthen and update our courses in genetics and genomics, and improve undergraduate genetics instruction through enhancement of genetics laboratory resources."

Like any good soccer match, this one is hotly contested and features fans jammed together around the field, getting so heated and tense they start shouting at each other. Just another soccer match, with one distinction: the players on the field are dogs. Robot dogs.

Welcome to the RoboCup U.S. Open, the premier sporting event in the world of robotics, which was hosted by the University of New Orleans in 2004. Computer scientists from Austin and Iran, Canada and Taiwan-from all over the U.S. and the world-brought their Chihuahua-sized robots to the UNO campus bent on proving that they had taught their dogs to run and kick better than the rest.

Sony Corp. threw down the RoboCup gauntlet a few years ago, challenging the robotics world to, by 2050, develop a team of humanoid robots that can beat the best human soccer team in the world. Capitalizing on the worldwide interest in soccer, RoboCup was envisioned as a means of spurring robotics research forward, much as defeating Gary Kasparov at chess had driven advances in artificial intelligence in the 1990s.

The robotics soccer challenge, however, makes the chess challenge looks like child's play. That's because while artificially intelligent machines are quite capable of performing tasks that humans picked up rather late in our development-chess and complex math, for example-they struggle with running, language, vision, and other tasks we master as children.

Common knowledge has it that if you reduce the amount of calories you eat, you'll lose weight. But weight loss may be just the start of a whole list of good things to happen. One Baton Rouge scientist is testing a theory that holds that smaller, lighter bodies, which require less food, will actually be healthier in a number of ways and may live longer.

This idea is called caloric restriction (CR)-an intense diet that is scientifically and individually designed to reduce food (calories) enough to force weight loss and maintain a much smaller body weight. Dr. Eric Ravussin at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center wants to find out if CR is the key to enhanced health and longer life. Other researchers have offered results that suggest the answer is "yes," but Ravussin wants to take the idea a step further. He wants to know if adding exercise to the mix helps participants stay on the rigorous diet and improve their quality of life.

Asian soybean rust has been around since the early part of the 20th century. However, it had been confined to Asia until recently, when it spread to Africa and then on to South America. It was first discovered in the Western Hemisphere in Brazil in 2000. In early November 2004, LSU AgCenter scientist Ray Schneider unexpectedly found Asian soybean rust in a production field on the Ben Hur Research Farm near the LSU campus-the first discovery of the disease in North America.

This year, LSU AgCenter scientists are launching a series of research projects to find out what they can about Asian soybean rust and how the potentially devastating disease will develop in Louisiana. Meanwhile, the scientists are telling farmers to go about their soybean planting as they have in the past, despite this looming threat. In Louisiana, about a million acres of land is planted in soybeans, more than any other crop.

"We don't know when we'll see Asian soybean rust again," said Boyd Padgett, LSU AgCenter plant pathologist. "We don't know how it will react in Louisiana. There's a lot we don't know about this disease."

Research by graduate student Katherine Wood of LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport has yielded new information about sickle cell disease, the genetic blood disorder most common in African-Americans. The discoveries are already being translated into the development of a new therapy designed for severe sickle cell disease patients.

Wood's research has yielded two novel findings, reports her major professor, D. Neil Granger, Boyd Professor and head of the department of molecular and cellular physiology at LSUHSC-S. Granger first described the role of free radicals-unstable molecules produced by blood vessels-in ischemia reperfusion injury. Wood observed that platelets-not just red blood cells as long thought-are involved in the painful crises that characterize sickle cell disease. She also found that blood vessel walls, as well as blood cells, express a sticky substance that causes cells to adhere to the walls, obstructing blood flow and triggering the pain episodes. Free radicals are the culprits that trigger production of the sticky substance.

The School of Dentistry at the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans has been awarded more than $16 million in research funding over the past 18 months. The total includes five grants from the National Institutes of Health, funding of $640,000 from the Brown Foundation, and support for 13 clinical trials. The $10.7 million NIH Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence Program grant, awarded last fall, will alone create nine new jobs at the dental school, provide research support for up to 11 faculty, and provide partial salary support for 21 faculty and staff. "This kind of funding is enabling our dental school to develop a critical mass of researchers in oral health as well as research infrastructure, improving its competitive position for NIH and other federal grants," says Dr. John Rock, chancellor of LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans. One of six professional schools at LSUHSC-NO, the School of Dentistry is the only dental school in Louisiana. Says Dean Dr. Eric Hovland, "Our dental school has always been known for its excellent clinical education-now we will be known as a strong research school as well. Our goal is to increase our NIH funding rank to among the top 10 NIH-funded dental schools in the nation."