If you are a faculty, staff or administrator who works with industry — or would like to — you’re encouraged to attend the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership, or UIDP, Connect 2021 virtual conference taking place Sept. 13-17. 

This five-day event features a diverse agenda pertaining to academic-corporate collaboration, where hundreds of experts will provide actionable insight, case examples and inspiring guidance. Those who register for UIDPConnect will be able to listen and actively participate using the Attendee Hub. In addition, session recordings and materials will be made available to registered participants after the live presentations.

The K-State Office of the Vice President for Research and K-State Innovation Partners have obtained institutional access for this virtual conference. Anyone with a Kansas State University email address — @k-state.edu or @ksu.edu — may sign up at no additional charge. Email Katie Small at ksmall@k-state.edu for registration information.

K-State is a charter member of the UIDP and has actively engaged in this organization since 2006. The partnership is a recognized leader in addressing issues impacting academic-corporate collaboration, providing a unique forum for university and industry representatives to find better ways to partner.

Please pass this information along to other K-State colleagues who may be interested. Certified research administrators who attend can earn recertification contact hours.

Learn more about UIDPConnect 2021. 

To register to attend. Email Katie Small at ksmall@k-state.edu for registration information.

The Office of Nationally Competitive Scholarships, the Graduate School and the Office of Research Development are hosting an information session on the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program, or NSF GRFP, at 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, September 8, 2021, via zoom.

This session will take an in-depth look at the requirements for an NSF GFRP submission. A panel of faculty members who have served on review panels for this program will discuss tips and provide advice that you will not find in this program’s request for proposals. Students will also have an opportunity to talk about their research ideas with the panel. If you are serious about submitting to this program, this is a session you should not miss. This session should be of interest to graduate students and undergraduate seniors since both are eligible to apply.  Click here to register for this event.

Contact Lindsay Schmidt, director, at director@stemmfire.org if you are interested or need information. Find more information on the STEM Fire website.

The EPSCoR Program Review Committee of the Kansas Board of Regents is currently seeking proposals for its upcoming meeting, scheduled for October 26, 2021. Proposals must contain the information outlined in the Program Guidelines and should not exceed seven pages in length. Proposals will be accepted through October 12, 2021.

Questions may be directed to Jennifer Armour at jarmour@ksbor.org.

Every successful enterprise starts with a vision. Vision is necessary, but how do you harness action to move that vision forward? In this interactive session, Dr. M. S. (Peg) AtKisson will clarify the elements of a successful career and how to intentionally create approaches and habits to help you stay aligned with your vision and produce the work that moves your research forward.

Sign up for the Stakeholder Registry to receive daily updates during Action Week, including resources you can print, post, and share. Register for as many webinars as you would like. After you register, you will receive a confirmation email with additional details.

ASF: Where it Exists and What’s at Stake

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ASF and the Benefits of Biosecurity

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ASF and the Feral Swine Factor

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The University of Maryland, College Park, in collaboration with UIDP and with support from the National Science Foundation, MITRE, and the Consortium of Social Science Associations, will host a two-part workshop, convening a diverse group of experts and leaders from academia, industry, and government to consider how academic-corporate partnerships can advance social, behavioral, and organizational science research to positively impact science and society. Part one of the workshop will be a virtual workshop from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on October 14, 2021, and part two will be an in-person workshop at the University of Maryland, College Park, on April 20-21, 2022.

Learn more and register to attend.

Updated food assistance will help Kansas families, says K-State nutrition expert junctioncityunion.com

K-State Research & Extension: Masks in gyms kwch.com

K-State receives $3.7 million grant for continued research into COVID-19 treatments news. yahoo.com

National political furor finds way into local government meetings 9news.com

One Family's Stressful Search For Child Care Exposes A Reason Rural Kansas Is Losing People kcur.org

Attack of the Superweeds nytimes.com

Protein implicated in tumor growth may protect against neurodegenerative diseases news-medical.net

In days mostly gone by, it was fashionable in some circles for people to hand out calling cards to mark their arrival at special social events. This genteel human tradition is now being adapted to the lab to allow certain benign viruses to issue their own high-tech calling cards and mark their arrival at precise locations in the genome. These special locations show where there’s activity involving transcription factors, specialized proteins that switch genes on and off and help determine cell fate. nih.gov

It was when the second person with unusual clots came in that Phillip Nicolson knew something was wrong. Blood clots are uncommon in young people, and it’s even rarer to see a combination of blood clots and alarmingly low levels of platelets — cell fragments that help to form clots. nature.com

Edward Holmes does not like making predictions, but last year he hazarded a few. Again and again, people had asked Holmes, an expert on viral evolution at the University of Sydney, how he expected SARS-CoV-2 to change. In May 2020, 5 months into the pandemic, he started to include a slide with his best guesses in his talks. The virus would probably evolve to avoid at least some human immunity, he suggested. But it would likely make people less sick over time, he said, and there would be little change in its infectivity. In short, it sounded like evolution would not play a major role in the pandemic’s near future. sciencemag.org

Of the ten clinical genetics labs in the United States that share the most data with the research community, seven include ‘Caucasian’ as a multiple-choice category for patients’ racial or ethnic identity, despite the term having no scientific basis. Nearly 5,000 biomedical papers since 2010 have used ‘Caucasian’ to describe European populations. This suggests that too many scientists apply the term, either unbothered by or unaware of its roots in racist taxonomies used to justify slavery — or worse, adding to pseudoscientific claims of white biological superiority. nature.com

Scientists have unraveled the enigma of inheritance of coat color patterns in dogs. The researchers discovered that a genetic variant responsible for a very light coat in dogs and wolves originated more than two million years ago in a now extinct relative of the modern wolf. sciencedaily.com

For 76 years, Pluto was the beloved ninth planet. No one cared that it was the runt of the solar system, with a moon, Charon, half its size. No one minded that it had a tilted, eccentric orbit. Pluto was a weirdo, but it was our weirdo. sciencenews.org

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