Kudos

KUDOS

"Hidden India: The Kerala Spicelands," a 60-minute PBS documentary by radio-TV professor Jan Thompson, won silver awards for best adult education program and best cinematography at the 2003 Chicago International Film and Television Festival. It also won the overall grand prize and a first prize at the National Broadcasting Society's 2003 annual convention. Thompson's work was featured in the Spring 2001 issue of Perspectives.

Patents recently granted to SIUC researchers include "Methods of Treating Clinical Diseases with Isoflavones" (#6,592,910); "Method for Treating or Preventing Prostatic Conditions" (#6,608,111); "Stabilization of Coal Wastes and Coal Combustion Byproducts" (#6,554,888); and "Methods for Improving Learning or Memory by Vagus Nerve Stimulation" (#6,556,868). Faculty involved are in animal science, food and nutrition, physiology, chemistry, mining engineering, psychology, and neurology. Perspectives has featured some of this research in past issues; look for more in the future.

A $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy will allow SIUC's Coal Research Center to test improved filters for use in a clean-coal technology called high-temperature pressurized fluidized-bed combustion. Such combustion systems rely on filters to protect equipment by trapping tiny bits of soot or unburned carbon. SIUC is working on the three-year project with Siemens Westinghouse Corp., which developed the new filters. Testing will be done at the campus's power plant, which uses a fluidized-bed system.

Studying the effect of prenatal tobacco exposure on the growth and neurobehavioral development of pre-term and full-term infants is the goal of a $1.78 million grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The five-year project, headed by Kim Espy, associate professor of psychiatry, will also look at genetic differences that may make infants more vulnerable to the effects of prenatal tobacco exposure.

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