News

A New Way to Fight Bacteria
A large and growing problem in medicine is that of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. These bacteria assemble themselves into biofilms - sticky molecules that help them clump together and give them more resistance to antibiotics.
Smart Fabrics
MSI PI Julianne Abel (assistant professor, Mechanical Engineering) has combined her interests in materials and knitting in a unique way - developing functional, or “smart,” materials that can be for engineering applications in fields such as medical devices, rehabilitation, aerospace, and defense. These pliable, lightweight materials can be created to provide actuation, sensing, energy harvesting, and communication. Professor Abel uses MSI resources for some of this research.
MSI PI Brian Steffenson Receives 2019 Malone International Leadership Award
The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities announced recently that MSI PI Brian Steffenson (Plant Pathology) is the recipient of the 2019 Michael P. Malone International Leadership Award. This award recognizes people who advance international education at public universities.
MSI PI Ian Tonks Receives DOE CAREER Award
MSI PI Ian Tonks (associate professor, Chemistry) has received a CAREER grant from the U.S. Department of Energy. These grants are awarded to researchers during the early years of their careers to help support outstanding research and teaching.
Interview With MSI PI Andrew Odlyzko
MSI PI Andrew Odlyzko (professor, Mathematics) was interviewed by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for its “People of ACM” feature. In the interview, Professor Odlyzko talks about several areas in which he has performed research, including internet traffic, cybersecurity, and quantum computing. The interview appears on the ACM website.
Center for Sustainable Polymers Receives $20M Grant
The NSF Center for Sustainable Polymers (CSP) at the University of Minnesota has received a $20 million grant renewal from the National Science Foundation. The Center performs basic research into polymers, which are the components of plastics. The researchers at the Center are seeking to develop polymers from sustainable biomass using new, innovative techniques; these plastics could then be disposed of in environmentally friendly ways.
Effects of Declining Estrogen on Postmenopausal Women’s Muscles
University of Minnesota researchers, partnering with colleagues at institutions around the US and in Finland, have shown that declining estrogen levels in post-menopausal women inhibits their ability to maintain and build muscles. Cells known as satellite cells, which are necessary for muscle tissue to build and repair itself, need estrogen to stay healthy. The researchers also found that a drug called BZA seems to mimic the benefits of estradiol, the major form of human estrogen, without having the health risks of estrogen-replacement therapy.
MSI PI Vipin Kumar Uses Big Data to Track Climate Change
MSI PI Vipin Kumar (Regents Professor, Computer Science and Engineering) is encouraging his colleagues to use data mining, machine learning, and other data-driven approaches to understand and fight issues related to climate change. Professor Kumar is co-chair of the 2019 Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD), hosted by the Association for Computing Machinery and taking place in Anchorage, Alaska this week.
August 2019 Maintenance
On Wednesday, August 7, 2019, MSI staff will perform scheduled maintenance and upgrades to various MSI systems. Primary Storage, Mesabi, and Itasca will be unavailable throughout much of the day. A global system reservation will start at 5:00 a.m. on August 7. Jobs that cannot be completed before 5:00 a.m. on August 7 will be held until after maintenance and then started once the system returns to production status. August maintenance will include:
Study by MSI PIs Reveals Individual Reaction to Food
A new study co-authored by MSI PIs Dan Knights (associate professor, Computer Science and Engineering; BioTechnology Institute) and members of his lab has shown that people’s response to particular foods is very personal. Any given food has a different effect on different people’s microbiomes. This research supports the idea that a one-size-fits-all diet plan may not be effective.
Studying Stresses on the I-35W Bridge
Twelve years after the collapse of the old I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, the new bridge is under constant monitoring through sensors that have been on the structure since it was completed in 2008. MSI PI Lauren Linderman (assistant professor, Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering) is collecting and analyzing the data from these sensors.

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