The University of Michigan reported$1.62 billion in research volume during fiscal year 2020,which led to important advancements in areas ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic to driverless vehicle technology,social justice and carbon neutrality.U-M was able to maintain the same total research volume as FY19 during afiscal year in which the novel coronavirus prompted the university to temporarily ramp down noncritical laboratory research.The university also received 1,918 new research awards between July 1,2019 and June 30—the largest being a$31 million federal grant that supports research on the restoration of dental,oral and craniofacial tissues lost to disease,injury or congenital disorders.“Researchers across our three campuses have truly embraced this vision of serving the world through research and scholarship,using their passion and expertise to address critical challenges with broad societal impact,”said Rebecca Cunningham,vice president for research and the William G.Barsan Collegiate Professor of Emergency Medicine.“When the pandemic hit,many of our researchers quickly transitioned their work to identify treatments for the virus,improve personal protective equipment and explore how COVID-19 has exacerbated health inequities within our communities.Beyond this pandemic,the university community will continue to exercise its commitment to catalyzing research and scholarship,developing innovative technologies and strengthening the economy.”The federal government remains the largest sponsor of U-M research,and during FY20,agencies supported 54%of the university’s research volume.With$887 million in federally sponsored research over the last fiscal year,U-M researchers led projects that span Great Lakes sustainability and racial health disparities to the arts and humanities.Researchers across the three U-M campuses generated$576 million in research under contract with the National Institutes of Health,a federal agency that funds 2,497 U-M active projects to address the causes,diagnoses,preventions and cures of human disease.The university also reported$91 million in annual research expenditures from the National Science Foundation and$77 million from the Department of Defense.Institutional investment of U-M research during FY20 totaled$548 million,which funded research-related infrastructure projects,sparked multidisciplinary initiatives and aided in faculty retention efforts.The university also reported$113 million in industry sponsored research during FY20,part of which supported aproject that aims to enhance the landscape of energy assistance programs statewide.As part of its commitment to translating research from the laboratory to the marketplace,U-M research spurred arecord 31 startups and 522 inventions during FY20.Among those startups is acompany that designs and operates networked fleets of autonomous robotic delivery vehicles.The U-M research enterprise also plays acritical role in strengthening the economy by creating new jobs and driving global competitiveness.The university contributed$5.6 billion to the national economy through vendor contracts and subcontracts between FY02 and FY19,$1.8 billion of which was spent in Michigan,according to the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science.“When our world needs knowledge and understanding most,University of Michigan faculty members always rise to the challenge,”President Mark Schlissel said.“I am very proud to be part of acommunity of scholars who embrace our university’s commitment to serve the public good through research.” 查看详细>>

Studying samples from sewers,wiping down classrooms and buses,and taking measurements of air.Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health are performing these tasks to determine how much coronavirus is present in the environment on campus,and whether that has any relationship on COVID-19 infection rates within the university community.They hope this approach will provide an additional perspective from the work of other researchers,which has focused mostly on epidemiological approaches such as tracking infection rates.“Our idea was,let’s go out and actually sample around campus in the air,on surfaces and also in sewage,and see where—or if—we find the virus,”said Rick Neitzel,U-M associate professor of environmental health sciences.“By making measurements before the start of the semester,and then continuing to sample the same locations over time as students,staff and faculty come back to campus,we can see how the amount of virus in the environment relates to infection rates.The two must be related,but nobody has looked at this yet.” 查看详细>>

Working with Michigan Drug Discovery,SPARC will support projects selected from across U-M’s broad research enterprise,with afocus on early stage translational therapeutic work in the areas of oncology,neurodegeneration,inflammation,dermatology,and ophthalmology.“This new partnership will greatly enhance the suite of opportunities available to campus researchers through Michigan Drug Discovery,”said Peter Toogood,director of Michigan Drug Discovery,a university-wide collaboration to provide funding and mentoring for U-M faculty members’drug discovery projects.“With this new funding,research support and drug-development expertise from SPARC,U-M is strongly positioned to help its researchers advance their discoveries toward marketable medicines and technologies to improve human health,”Toogood said.The partnership has the potential to maximize the impact of the two organizations’strengths,said Roger Cone,a member of the Michigan Drug Discovery executive committee and director of the U-M Life Sciences Institute,the administrative home of Michigan Drug Discovery.“Major research universities like U-M have enormous expertise in the biology and fundamental research that pharmaceutical companies seek,and the pharmaceutical industry has the large-scale chemistry resources needed to turn new discoveries into marketable drugs,”he said.“This alliance helps bridge amajor gap in the path from the research bench to clinics and patients.” 查看详细>>

ANN ARBOR—Beginning biology students throughout the country could soon use preserved chipmunks,squirrels,mice and other specimens in natural history museums to form and test hypotheses in an unusual,hands-on teaching module developed by scientists and educators at the University of Michigan.The teaching unit was developed to allow first-and second-year biology students access to specimens in U-M’s vast Museum of Zoology where they could form questions,collect data and test their hypotheses.Details of how to teach the module are published in the journal CourseSource.Students who completed the module showed a74%increase in knowledge of biodiversity and museum research.“If auniversity or high school educator is interested in doing alaboratory module like this,every single thing they need to replicate it in their own setting is provided,”said Cindee Giffen,a lecturer in U-M’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology who co-wrote the journal article and helped design the module.“We have 20 different pieces of supplemental material,PowerPoint slides,a script,the main points the instructor should get across in each slide,materials for the students to use in class.You can read about what inspired us to do this lab,how we did it in our setting,take our materials and edit as you wish.” 查看详细>>

Now,new research led by the University of Michigan that followed students over a27-year period sheds light on just how wealth influences learning outcomes,and why it may be agreater driver of socioeconomic disparities in educational achievement and intergenerational inequality than income alone.The study was supported with funding from the U-M Poverty Solutions Initiative.“These findings are significant because they illuminate previously unidentified mechanisms by which wealth leads to children’s educational success,”said Matthew Diemer,professor in the Combined Program in Education and Psychology&Educational Studies.“It’s widely known that wealth leads to educational success,and we have well-known idioms(‘born with asilver spoon in their mouth’)that underscore this,”he said.“It’s specifically linking the two together over a27-year span and examining their complex interrelationships with sophisticated methods that‘moves the needle.‘”The researchers tracked children and their parents from prebirth to early adulthood,analyzing responses from asample of 1,247 young people and their parents. 查看详细>>

ANN ARBOR—Data from microsatellites can be used to detect and double the impact of sustainable interventions in agriculture at large scales,according to anew study led by the University of Michigan.By being able to detect the impact and target interventions to locations where they will lead to the greatest increase or yield gains,satellite data can help increase food production in alow-cost and sustainable way.According to the team of researchers from U-M,the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center,and Stanford and Cornell universities,finding low cost ways to increase food production is critical given that feeding agrowing population and increasing the yields of crops in achanging climate are some of the greatest challenges of the coming decades.“Being able to use microsatellite data,to precisely target an intervention to the fields that would benefit the most at large scales will help us increase the efficacy of agricultural interventions,”said lead author Meha Jain,assistant professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability.Microsatellites are small,inexpensive,low-orbiting satellites that typically weigh 100 kilograms(220 pounds)or less.“About 60-70%of total world food production comes from small holders,and they have the largest field-level yield gaps,”said Balwinder Singh,senior researcher at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. 查看详细>>

ANN ARBOR—A new method for making stem cell colonies that mimic parts of early human development could help investigate important questions in maternal and child health,such as:What chemicals pose risks to developing embryos,and what causes certain birth defects and multiple miscarriages?The technique,developed at the University of Michigan,imitates stages in embryo development that occur shortly after implantation in the uterus.This is when the amniotic sac begins to form and when the stem cells that would go on to become the fetus take their first steps toward organization into the body.The embryo-like or“embryoid”structures don’t have the potential to develop beyond small colonies of cells.The system can reliably produce hundreds or thousands of embryo-like structures needed to determine whether amedicine is safe for apregnant woman to take in very early pregnancy,for instance. 查看详细>>

ANN ARBOR—New robotic lake-bottom laboratories will keep awatchful eye on western Lake Erie’s cyanobacteria bloom this summer,and amobile lab housed inside acigar-shaped autonomous underwater glider will be tested there in mid-August.In adirect response to the 2014 Toledo water crisis,a research team from the University of Michigan’s Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration field-tested an environmental sample processor,or ESP,in fall 2016 in western Lake Erie and deployed it for regular service in July 2017.The$375,000 ESPniagara sits on the lake bottom and tracks levels of dangerous toxins produced by cyanobacteria.The“lab in acan”was positioned several miles west of the city of Toledo’s water intake,where it could provide about one day’s notice if highly toxic water appeared to be heading toward the intake.Two more ESPs—ESPrush and ESPnessie—will enter service this summer,according to Tom Johengen,associate director of CIGLR,which is based at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability.Funding was provided through the federal Great Lakes Restoration Initiative and the Great Lakes Observing System.The three ESPs will rotate duties so that two of them are always in the lake,providing uninterrupted data collection throughout the summer.ESPniagara is already in place near the Toledo water intake.The first of the new ESPs is scheduled for deployment this week near the city of Monroe’s water intake,Johengen said.“Our 2019 goal is to continually maintain two ESP stations within Lake Erie throughout the bloom season,one near the Toledo water intake and one near the Monroe water intake,”he said.In addition,the research team will test aroving underwater laboratory in western Lake Erie for 10 days in mid-August.It’s athird-generation ESP system with mobile 3G housed inside acigar-shaped Tethys long-range autonomous underwater vehicle.The AUV glider is about 7feet long and 2feet in diameter and will cover about 25 miles per day.The Mobile 3G-AUV technology is being developed in partnership between CIGLR,NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor,the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and the University of Washington.Funding was provided through avariety of sources at NOAA,including the Ocean Technology Transfer program,the Technology Testbed program,and NOAA’s‘Omics program.The mobile lab will collect data about the cyanobacteria bloom—toxin concentrations,genetic and environmental information—while traveling throughout the western Lake Erie basin.The blooms are also known as harmful algal blooms,or HABs.“NOAA is developing this autonomous technology to enable persistent,24/7 detection and mapping of HAB toxins,”said Steve Ruberg,an observing systems researcher at NOAA’s Ann Arbor lab who is leading the development of the Mobile 3G-AUV technology.Research ecologist Reagan Errera oversees the ESP program at the NOAA lab.CIGLR and NOAA researchers also maintain eight monitoring stations in Lake Erie’s western basin.Water samples are collected weekly throughout the summer to study bloom development,spatial extent,duration and termination.CIGLR and NOAA also support an online“HAB forecast”that uses remote-sensed estimations of bloom intensity and spatial coverage and projects their likely movement. 查看详细>>

ANN ARBOR—The first programmable memristor computer—not just amemristor array operated through an external computer—has been developed at the University of Michigan.It could lead to the processing of artificial intelligence directly on small,energy-constrained devices such as smartphones and sensors.A smartphone AI processor would mean that voice commands would no longer have to be sent to the cloud for interpretation,speeding up response time.“Everyone wants to put an AI processor on smartphones,but you don’t want your cell phone battery to drain very quickly,”said Wei Lu,U-M professor of electrical and computer engineering and senior author of the study in Nature Electronics.In medical devices,the ability to run AI algorithms without the cloud would enable better security and privacy. 查看详细>>

ANN ARBOR—The state’s top three public research universities will collaborate to provide Detroit-specific economic data analysis and forecasting services to the state’s largest city.The City of Detroit University Economic Analysis Partnership brings together the economic forecast and modeling power of the University of Michigan,Michigan State University and Wayne State University under the five-year agreement.“Since exiting bankruptcy just five years ago,we have completed aremarkable turnaround in the way we manage the city’s finances and we are now moving forward in afiscally responsible way,but we are always looking for ways to improve,”said Detroit’s Chief Financial Officer David Massaron.“Thanks to this partnership with the universities,we will gain access to even better data,allowing us to make strategic decisions that will ultimately improve the quality of life for Detroiters.”The partnership will be led by the Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics at U-M,but the work will be collaborative.U-M will apply the same econometric modeling it uses for its annual Michigan and U.S.economic forecasts for the creation of Detroit economic forecasts.Michigan State’s Center for Local Government Finance and Policy will contribute revenue modeling and forecasting,while Wayne State’s Department of Economics will bring locally relevant data and its housing and property tax modeling. 查看详细>>