ACADEMIA

Several recent grants awarded to research faculty in the School of Medicine and the College of Science and Technology will continue to expand and strengthen Temple’s research enterprise.

The grants, from the National Science Foundation, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Department of Defense through the Office of Naval Research, will not only support specific research projects, but also enhance Temple’s infrastructure for researchers across multiple disciplines.

Supercomputing

Jie Wu, professor and chair of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, is the principal investigator of an $840,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to acquire a hybrid high-performance GPU/CPU system. The state-of-the-art computing system, which will be housed in the new Center for Networked Computing in CIS, will greatly enhance the computing facilities available to Temple researchers.

“This grant will allow us to acquire the most advanced computing technology available,” said Wu.  “It will be one of the most cost-efficient supercomputers in the Greater Philadelphia region. Researchers will be able to crunch massive amounts of data and computation very, very fast.”

Wu said the system can be used by researchers requiring high-performance computing capabilities in several Temple disciplines, including computer and information sciences, chemistry, electrical and computer engineering, mathematics, physics, pulmonary and critical care medicine and physical therapy.

In addition to Wu, other co-principal investigators and senior personnel listed on the grant include: Saroj Biswas, professor of electrical and computer engineering; Michael Klein, professor of chemistry; Igor Rivin, professor of mathematics; Yuan Shi, associate professor of computer and information sciences; Li Bai, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering; Gerard J. Criner, professor of medicine; Edward T. Gawlinski, associate professor of physics; Axel Kohlmeyer, research professor of chemistry; Eugene Kwatny, professor of computer and information sciences; and Zoran Obradovic, professor of computer and information sciences.

Wu added that the team hopes to use the supercomputing capability to also promote, foster and support collaboration with others in higher education, K-12 education, government agencies and local industry. The system will be acquired over the summer and Wu said he hopes to have it operational sometime in the fall semester.

Blindness and visual impairment

Jeffrey Henderer, professor of ophthalmology at Temple’s School of Medicine, is a co-principal investigator for two health research grants addressing blindness and visual impairment awarded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s Department of Health and funded through Pennsylvania's share of the national tobacco settlement.

The first project, through Wills Eye Health System and Thomas Jefferson University, aims to improve the eye exam rate for African Americans with diabetes.

“Most data would suggest that only about 50 percent of diabetics get annual eye exams,” said Henderer. This is a major concern, he said, since “diabetes causes blinding retinopathy, which is, to a large degree, a treatable disease.”

During the project, patients from Temple’s internal medicine, geriatrics and family medicine practices will be randomly selected to receive visits from a community home health worker, who will provide detailed educational information about the effects of diabetes on the eyes. Half of the patient sample will be scheduled to receive a follow-up diabetic eye examination; investigators will log the results of the exams to track the number of patients who respond positively to the intervention.

The second project, through the University of Pennsylvania’s Scheie Eye Institute, will examine the molecular basis of macular degeneration in African Americans.

“(Macular degeneration) is a relatively uncommon cause of vision loss in African Americans, so very little work has been done to figure out whether it is a similar disease to macular degeneration in Caucasian Americans,” said Henderer.

He said African-American patients who have the condition will be recruited from Temple’s ophthalmology practice to have their blood sampled and analyzed for genetic markers that are associated with the condition.

In addition to Henderer, two additional School of Medicine faculty will serve as co-investigators on the grants: David Barclay, associate professor of family medicine; and Omesh Gupta, assistant professor of ophthalmology.

The Wills study is being funded through a $3.6 million grant, while the Scheie study will receive $4.6 million. Both studies are for four years.

Defense equipment grants

Three research faculty members have received equipment grants from the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program through the Office of Naval Research: Robert Levis and Xiaoxing Xi in the College of Science and Technology; and Marla Wolfson from the School of Medicine.

Levis, chair of chemistry and director of the Center for Advanced Photonics Research in the College of Science and Technology, will receive $150,000 to purchase a state-of-the-art femtosecond laser system that has about twice the energy of the center’s three current lasers. It is one of the most powerful commercially available laser systems.

“This new laser will let us move from single filament experiments to multiple filament experiments, which will take us to the next level in our remote detection technology research,” said Levis.

Levis said the remote detection technology being developed in his lab would be well-suited to detect the type of improvised explosive device that was recently discovered in New York’s Times Square.

Marla Wolfson, professor of physiology, pediatrics and medicine in Temple’s School of Medicine, will receive $160,000 to purchase a customized, integrated small pulmonary function analysis and environmental exposure system for small animal models. The system will assist Wolfson in her study of perfluorochemical liquids as a core technology to protect the brain, lungs and bowel from injuries sustained from high pressure blasts, such as those caused by improvised explosive devices.

A second application for the system is the study of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the fourth leading cause of death in the world. The new equipment will allow researchers in Temple’s clinical lung center to generate appropriate models to more effectively study the disease.

“Nothing like this system currently exists anywhere at Temple, so this grant is going to significantly expedite the research that multiple groups are already pursuing, but do not have the appropriate technology to do,” said Wolfson. “While this grant is in my name, it will also provide a very robust core technology for multiple users within the university.”

Xiaoxing Xi, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Physics, also received $430,000 for the acquisition of equipment used in the fabrication of MgB2 Josephson junctions and circuits, which are used in high performance superconducting digital circuits.