News

The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) has published a list of patents that have been awarded to University researchers during the past year. Thirty-seven MSI Principal Investigators, shown below, are on this list. The complete list can be found on the OVPR’s Inquiry blog: Patent Roll Call, Spring 2019. The PIs’ MSI pages are linked from their names (PI names are in bold).

Citizen-science projects include thousands of people who sort through huge datasets. Now these human volunteers have a partner - computers with sophisticated image-recognition capabilities. A recent study led by University of Minnesota researchers used machine-learning techniques to “teach” computers to identify different types of animals based on camera-trap photos from several datasets. The article was the cover story for the January 2019 issue of the British Ecological Society’s journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

MSI PI George Weiblen (professor, Plant and Microbial Biology) is featured in a story about genomic research into Cannabis sativa as legislatures discuss its legalization for medicinal and recreational use. The story was featured on Minneapolis/St. Paul tv station Fox 9.  Professor Weiblen has studied Cannabis sativa and its close relative hemp for many years. His group uses MSI resources for their genomics studies.

On Wednesday, February 6, 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 February 6. Jobs that cannot be completed before 5:00 a.m. on February 6 will be held until after maintenance and then started once the system returns to production status. February maintenance will include:

Four MSI PIs are among the University faculty who have named 2019-21 McKnight Land-Grant Professors. The purpose of this program is to advance the careers of outstanding assistant professors. The MSI PIs included on the list are:

University leaders announced the Grand Challenges Research Interdisciplinary Team Awards for 2019 in December 2018. Six teams received awards, three of which are co-led by MSI PIs. The projects headed by MSI PIs include (MSI PIs are in bold): Clinical Precision Medicine Based on Single Cell Analysis Co-PIs:

MSI PI Gabe Chan (assistant professor, Humphrey School of Public Affairs)  has been providing insights into Excel Energy’s recent pledge to go completely carbon-free by 2050. An interview by Minnesota Public Radio can be found on their website: How Xcel Could Bring Carbon-Free Power to Minnesota.

MSI PIs Sagar Goyal (professor, Veterinary Population Medicine) and Peter Bruggeman (professor, Mechanical Engineering) are leading a team studying how using cold plasma on surfaces can reduce the incidence of a virus affecting pigs. Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSv), which spreads quickly through swine barns, is extremely costly to the pork industry.

MSI PI Peter Reich (professor, Forest Resources) is a co-author on a new paper that analyzed the trait-environment relationships of plants, using a massive database containing over 26,000 plant species. This research will help scientists understand plant communities and how they are affected by factors besides temperature and precipitation, such as soil conditions and wildfires. This can provide insight into how climate change might affect plant communities in different regions.