Oh, What a Year!
By David Hunt, News Services
This past year at North Carolina State University was one of the most exciting in our history. We celebrated the completion of a $1 billion capital campaign that is fueling the creation of new labs and classrooms and underwriting important research in clean energy, educational innovation, science and technology, and health and nutrition.
We embarked on an ambitious "Year of Energy," and launched a collaborative effort, funded by the National Science Foundation, to remake the nation's power grid to tap into solar, wind and other alternative energy sources.
We strengthened our state's economic foundation, developing programs to educate a 21st century workforce in high-growth fields such as advanced analytics, biomanufacturing, nonwoven fabrics and nanotechnology.
We celebrated the many accomplishments of our faculty, staff, students and alumni, including the work of our former colleague and alumnus, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and Olympic gold medal winner Cullen Jones.
In January, Chancellor James Oblinger will release his second annual Chancellor's Report, highlighting these and other innovations and accomplishments from 2008. Since the holiday season is a great time to reflect on the past year, here's a preview:
Educational Innovation
At NC State, we've successfully woven the principles and spirit of entrepreneurship into programs and curricula across campus for more than a decade. This year, building on that foundation, we launched the Entrepreneurship Initiative, a multidisciplinary effort to transform higher education by encouraging our faculty and students to think outside the classroom.
Through the initiative, we're closing the gap between the classroom and the outside world, and making higher education an active player in the effort to develop a highly skilled workforce for the 21st century.
The National Science Foundation turned to NC State to lead a nationwide effort to recruit and mentor young researchers to study disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the September 11 attacks.
Our researchers are harnessing the growing potential of video game software to promote the understanding of science and information technology among North Carolina high school students while helping them fulfill a newly implemented graduation requirement.
Health and Well-Being
NC State joined with the V Foundation, established by NC State's legendary basketball coach, the late Jim Valvano, to create the Jimmy V-NC State University Cancer Therapeutics Training Program in 2008. A $1 million grant from the V Foundation initiated this important partnership to train tomorrow's leading cancer researchers. The program places high school, undergraduate and graduate students in NC State research labs involved in cancer therapeutics, inspiring them to consider related careers. This hands-on approach gets students directly involved in work in areas like finding new chemotherapy treatments that attack only cancer cells and discovering effective ways of treating certain infections in cancer patients.
Patients battling HIV have new hope thanks to a process pioneered at NC State that uses nanotechnology to repair a failed drug, rekindling its ability to protect the body's immune system.
In our College of Veterinary Medicine - one of the top five teaching facilities of its kind in the nation - we advanced research that directly benefits human health in such areas as genomic sciences, gene therapy, vaccine development, diagnostics, new cancer immuno-therapy, advanced prosthetics and genetic research to prevent inherited and acquired diseases.
Energy and the Environment
NC State researchers moved toward perfecting a machine, called a torrefier, which performs modern-day alchemy. Woodchips go into a large funnel at the top of the machine and come out as hard, dry, black pellets at the bottom. In the process, they've changed more than just their appearance. They've been physically and chemically altered - through heat and pressure - to make them denser, drier and easier to crush. The pellets are lighter than woodchips but retain 90 percent of their original energy content. That makes them an ideal feedstock for electric power plants that traditionally use coal to generate energy for businesses and residential neighborhoods.
A process that converts virtually any type of vegetable oil and animal fat into liquid fuel was developed at NC State. The resulting fuel could replace gasoline - even jet fuel - without requiring modifications to engines and pipelines.
Our researchers are working to harness the power of bacteria that produce large amounts of hydrogen to help propel the development of hydrogen-powered vehicles.
Economic Development
Virtually every exciting new initiative, building and research project on campus is focused on growing and enhancing economic opportunity. We create jobs; then educate the workforce to fill them.
Today, 58 active startup companies hold licenses to NC State patent rights, including Cree, Inc., the leading manufacturer of semiconductors; BioMarck Pharmaceuticals, a leader in the discovery and development of new drugs for the treatment of pulmonary diseases; and LaamScience, a company developing apparel with a specialized coating that kills viruses and bacteria when exposed to light.
Innovation doesn't stop there. Centennial Campus - our 1,000-acre research community - is home to a dynamic technology incubator, an R&D neighborhood where our students, researchers and industry partners work together on the next generation of solutions in information and communication technologies, biotechnology, advanced materials and education.
Beyond Raleigh, NC State is partnering in the development of the North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis, N.C., a 350-acre R&D community that will restore the town's economic vitality and lead to breakthrough discoveries related to nutrition, health and wellness, and nutritionally advanced fruits and vegetables. NC State's new Plants for Human Health Institute, which opened its doors this year, integrates research in metabolomics, biochemistry, genomics and breeding to develop fruit and vegetable produce with enhanced health benefits and disease-fighting properties.
