Research News

The faculty of WSU is doing world-class research in science and technology. Here’s on update on recent research projects and achievements that may be of interest to science writers and reporters…

Magazine to highlight WSU anthropologist’s research on early settlements in U.S. Southwest

The work of a Washington State University anthropology professor helping to create new understanding about settlement system changes in the U.S. Southwest between A.D. 600 and 1300 will be highlighted in the July 2005 issue of Scientific American magazine.

Under grants from the National Science Foundation, Timothy A. Kohler is principal investigator for a project using agent-based modeling to reconstruct land use by Pueblo peoples in the Central Mesa Verde region in Colorado. The new research methods allow the researchers to weigh the importance of multiple factors, such as hunting, availability of fuel wood, water and changing agricultural production, on regional settlement patterns and on the number of people who could have made a living on the landscape.

Kohler’s research team, which also includes graduate students and other faculty at WSU and archaeologists at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Colorado,

 “One of the great benefits of computer simulation is that it allows researchers to conduct experiments, a luxury that is otherwise impossible in an historical science such as archaeology. We have found that virtual households often affect their environment in ways that limit the options of their offspring and even limit their long-term survival. In addition to illuminating the distant past, these simulations may point to methods for sustaining natural resources in the future,” the researchers say in the article.

Contacts:

Gary Lindsey, College of Liberal Arts, 509.335.8522, glindsey@wsu.edu
Charleen Taylor, WSU News Service, 509.335.7209, cmtaylor@wsu.edu

WSU chemist focuses on creating advanced medical diagnostic device

Washington State University chemistry professor Herbert Hill can envision a time when complex medical diagnostics will be performed within milliseconds, using an instrument that produces a comprehensive molecular profile of a patient from a single sample of blood or other bodily fluids.

As scientists have completed the draft sequencing of the human genome and embarked on the study of the human proteome, there has been growing recognition that yet another major effort is needed to understand the function of expressed genes – those whose coded information is converted into the structures operating within the cell. By developing a better understanding of how such genes and their encoded proteins – known collectively as the metabalome – interact within cells and organisms, scientists expect to gain powerful new insights into functional biology.

But creating a profile of the human metabolome will require the systematic analysis of the full range of metabolic compounds in the human body. It’s a scientific challenge that will rely on the development of novel new methodologies for the detection, identification and characterization of numerous components in complex mixtures.

Hill’s previous work in ion mobility spectrometry has already paved the way for the commercial development of a number of highly sophisticated molecular-detection instruments. They include devices for the rapid detection and identification of explosives that are now common in major airports, as well as similar instruments capable of detecting trace amounts of drugs in human hair, chemical warfare agents in the air, hydrocarbon pollutants in groundwater, and nitrites in agricultural runoff.

Contacts:

Herbert Hill, Department of Chemistry, 509.335.5648, hhhill@wsu.edu
Robert Strenge, WSU News Service, 509.335.3583, rstrenge@wsu.edu

Huge national backlog found in use of DNA testing in unsolved felonies

Counter to what viewers see on “CSI” and similar popular television shows, a recent study at Washington State University suggests forensic DNA analysis remains a woefully under-used technology in investigating criminal felony cases throughout the United States.

Based on information provided by law enforcement and criminal forensic laboratories, the new study suggests available biological crime scene evidence from roughly a quarter million unsolved rapes and homicides nationally since 1982 has yet to be subjected to the type of DNA testing that could aid in identifying a suspect.

The findings reveal a growing backlog of unsolved felony cases nationally – including roughly 400,000 unsolved rapes and homicides going back two decades. More than half those cases, researchers found, provide some amount of as-yet-untested biological evidence that could potentially reveal important DNA information.

“The backlog of unsolved rapes and homicides in the U.S. is just massive,” the study concludes. “If you look at the upper limits, there may be more than 432,000 unsolved rape cases and homicides nationally. Significantly, our research estimates that somewhere between 221,000 and 278,000 of those unsolved cases provide investigators with potential DNA evidence from the crime scene that has never been properly analyzed.”

Contacts:

Travis Pratt, 509.335.4075, tcpratt@wsu.edu
Robert Strenge, WSU News Service, 509.335.3583, rstrenge@wsu.edu

Research points way to more rapid development of designer proteins

In the brave new world of industrial genetics, a major obstacle has long been that the proteins that make the system work are destroyed in the high temperatures needed for commercial production. Now, WSU researcher Margaret E. Black and colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington have invented a way to boost the thermal stability of proteins.

Their research, which could lead to the rapid development of “designer” proteins such as pollution-degrading enzymes and anticancer agents, was reported recently in the prestigious journal, Science.

The article details how Black and her colleagues customized a protein to make it work at higher temperatures, thus enhancing its potential to fight cancer. The achievement resulted from the use of a computer program that allows researchers to target specific parts of the protein and make only those changes most likely to result in the effect they want.

According to Black, an associate professor in WSU’s Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the use of the new computational design technique offers the potential to cut years off the time needed to create useful new versions of proteins.

Contact:

Margaret Black, 509.335.6265, blackm@wsu.edu
Cherie Winner, WSU News Service, 509.335.4846, cwinner@wsu.edu