Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 8, 1993 TAG: 9303080076
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAVID REED ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
COLLEGES DEFEND RESEARCH
If there were a Heisman Trophy for exploits in the fields of science and technology, the University of Virginia would be promoting the name of Jason Zaritsky.The senior biology major was on a laboratory team that showed for the first time that a single cell keeps its own time on a 24-hour clock. The project is part of an effort at UVa's Center for Biological Timing to help people whose daily rhythms are disturbed by changing work shifts, jet lag and accidents.
As Virginia's major universities challenge a state agency's recommendation to spend less time on research and more on teaching, they're pointing to accomplishments like Zaritsky's, which was reported in January's Science magazine.
Virginia Tech President James McComas said more than half the nation's basic research occurs in universities. "Research is nothing less than the heartbeat of this university."
Sponsors of research will allocate $354 million this academic year to the six Virginia doctorate-granting universities cited in the State Council of Higher Education's recommendation - UVa, Virginia Tech, Old Dominion, Virginia Commonwealth, George Mason and William and Mary.
Most of the money comes from federal agencies, foundations and industry, with some coming from the state and the Center for Innovative Technology.
The state will spend $1.45 billion to operate its colleges and universities, with $784 million coming from taxpayers and the rest from tuition, fees and other sources.
About $542 million is spent on faculty salaries, and that's where the state wants to get more for its money to deal with surging enrollment.
"Maybe we've gone too far over to research at the doctoral institutions when faculty members spend less than half their time teaching," said Don Finlay, the Council of Higher Education's associate director.
The council acknowledged that sponsored research is a boon to the state's economic development, but said there needs to be closer scrutiny of state-supported departmental research.
"The primary loyalty of faculty is often to their disciplines, because their reputations among their peers determine their marketability, access to research funding and numerous perquisites," said the council report issued in January.
UVa professor Robert Dolan acknowledged there are researchers who toil alone in laboratories and offices on projects only their peers understand, but he said "that's the exception rather than the rule."
While research done by faculty members to remain current in their disciplines is unheralded by universities and generally does nothing for taxpayers, UVa Provost Thomas Jackson said the work is judged by editors of scholarly journals and in promotion and salary decisions.
"Keeping up with one's field is generally described as research in this calculus, yet it is clear as can be that this is essential to good teaching as well, and thus cannot be captured on one side of the line or the other," Jackson said in criticizing the state report.
Some of the most significant research projects at Virginia universities are out of this world, while others are as homey as a pig named Genie.
At Old Dominion University, mechanical engineering professor Robert Ash has designed a machine that can extract and store oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere.
The machine, the school said, makes the possibility of space travel to Mars more feasible because large amounts of oxygen are needed for rocket fuel. NASA funded the research.
The state is spending $4.1 million to help build a biotechnology center at which Virginia Tech will engineer plants and animals with desirable traits and move them into commercial production.
Genie has shown that genetically engineered pigs can produce a rare human therapeutic protein in their milk and pass the altered gene on to their offspring.
Protein C, which was inserted into genetic makeup of Genie's fertilized eggs, prevents blood from clotting and may be valuable in treatment of heart attacks. Tracy Wilkins, a professor of agricultural biotechnology, calculates that one sow's milk could produce up to $500,000 of Protein C every year.
Four other Virginia Tech scientists are working to produce Protein C in tobacco plants, which they say could provide a lucrative new market for tobacco farmers.
Zaritsky, the UVa biology major, said the successful research project funded by the National Science Foundation that he worked on "was the turning point in my life."
He said he is fascinated with research "as a quest to figure out exactly why something acts the way it does, to solve the mystery."
Gene Block, director of the UVa Center for Biological Timing and Zaritsky's mentor, said, "We have to be very careful about drawing distinctions between teaching and research. The danger I see is if we strip the amount of time faculty can spend in the research lab, it will affect the amount of time spent on teaching in the lab."
\ RESEARCH PROJECTS AT STATE UNIVERSITIES
University of Virginia environmental scientists Robert Dolan and Robert Davis devised a new system for rating the relative power of Northeasters, the devastating winter storms that cause much of the beach erosion on the Atlantic Coast. The system, similar to the one used to rank hurricanes, may prove useful to civil defense officials deciding whether to evacuate coastal areas.
UVa engineer Roman Krzysztofowicz developed a system of measuring rainfall that meteorologists recently began using to determine the odds of flooding in specific areas so river watchers know when to head for high ground.
UVa civil engineering associate professor Winston Lung created a computer model that tracks chemicals and pollutants as they enter rivers and flow into bays.
Old Dominion University biology professor Paul Kirk discovered a simple marine fungus that may be used to help clean up oil spills because it decomposes hydrocarbons, the predominant compounds in petroleum.
ODU biology professor Daniel Sonenshine patented a device that kills ticks with a decoy that fools them into mating with an object containing pesticide.
ODU professors John Stoughton and Roland Mielke developed a miniaturized sensor for detecting fetal heart rates in high-risk pregnancies.
George Mason University biologist Karen Oates is studying the effects of cocaine use during pregnancy to determine whether any of the problems it causes are reversible.
Source: Associated Press