uf explore magazine fall 2011

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FALL 2011 Loblolly Legacy Helping Pine Adapt to Climate Change

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Page 1: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

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Loblolly LegacyHelping Pine Adapt to Climate Change

Page 2: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

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Research at the University of Florida

Loblolly Legacy

Universities and

growers are helping

the South’s most

abundant pine

species adapt to

climate change.

Dr. Bernie Machen President

Dr. Win Phillips Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer

Board of TrusteesCarlos Alfonso, TampaC. David Brown II, OrlandoSusan Cameron, Fort LauderdaleMarshall McAllister Criser III, MiamiCharles B. Edwards, Fort Myers William M. Heekin, Sandy Springs, Ga.Alan M. Levine, Naples Scott Nygren, GainesvilleAnthony Reynolds, Gainesville Carolyn K. Roberts, OcalaJuliet M. Roulhac, PlantationSteven M. Scott, Boca RatonAlfred C. Warrington IV, Houston, TX

Explore is published by the UF Office of Research. Opinions expressed do not reflect the official views of the university. Use of trade names implies no endorsement by the University of Florida.© 2011 University of Florida. explore.research.ufl.edu

Editor: Joseph M. Kays [email protected]

Art Director: Katherine Kinsley-Momberger

Design and Illustration: Katherine Kinsley-Momberger Paul Messal

Writer:Donna Hesterman

Copy Editor:Patricia B. McGhee

Printing: StorterChilds Printing, Gainesville

Member of the University Research Magazine Associationwww.urma.org

Explore

About the cover:

Roots

A forgotten

farming method

gets a new look.

Seafood Sleuths

Applied Food

Technologies

collaborates with UF

fish experts to ensure

the seafood you order

is what you get.

Cover photo by J. Seiler

Fall 2011, Vol. 16, No. 3

The loblolly pine is the largest of the Southern pines, growing to 160 feet in height. Its 5- to 8-inch-long needles are in bundles of three and its cones are green, ripening to light brown with sharp spines.

Page 3: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

3036

Mouthing Off

Researchers are

helping break down

barriers to oral

health care among

rural African-

American men.

Foodborne Focus

Report identifies

riskiest combinations

of foods and

disease-causing

microorganisms.

10

5

42

Page 4: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

4 Fall 2011

Extracts

The finding could help medical professionals under-stand the origin of behavior and disease, which may be useful for customizing treat-ments or assessing risks in context with specific medical conditions.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, developmental biolo-gists Martin Cohn and Zhen-gui Zheng of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the UF College of Medi-cine, show that male and female digit proportions are determined by the balance of sex hormones during early embryonic development. Differences in how these hor-mones activate receptors in males and females affect the growth of specific digits.

The discovery provides a genetic explanation for a raft of studies that link finger proportions with traits ranging from sperm counts, aggression, musical ability, sexual orientation and sports prowess to health problems such as autism, depression, heart attack and breast cancer.

It has long been sus-pected that the digit ratio is

influenced by sex hormones, but until now direct experi-mental evidence was lacking.

“The discovery that growth of the developing digits is controlled directly by androgen and estrogen receptor activity confirms that finger proportions are a lifelong signature of our early hormonal milieu,” Cohn said. “In addition to understanding the basis of one of the more bizarre differences between the sexes, it’s exciting to think that our fingers can tell us something about the signals that we were exposed to during a short period of our time in the womb. There is growing evidence that a number of adult diseases have fetal origins. With the new data, we’ve shown that that the digit ratio reflects one’s prenatal androgen and estrogen activity, and that could have some explanatory power.”

Cohn and Zheng, also members of the UF Genet-ics Institute, found that the developing digits of male and female mouse embryos are packed with receptors for sex hormones. By following the prenatal development of the limb buds of mice, which have a digit length ratio simi-lar to humans, the scientists controlled the gene signaling effects of androgen — also known as testosterone — and estrogen.

Essentially, more androgen equated to a proportion-ally longer fourth digit. More estrogen resulted in a

feminized appearance. The study uncovered how these hormonal signals govern the rate at which skeletal precursor cells divide, and showed that different finger bones have different levels of sensitivity to androgen and estrogen.

Since Roman times, people have associated the hand’s fourth digit with the wearing of rings. In many cultures, a proportionally longer ring finger in men has been taken as a sign of fertility.

“I’ve been struggling to understand this trait since 1998,” said John T. Manning, a professor at Swansea Uni-versity in the United King-dom, who was not involved in the current research. “When I read this study, I thought, thank goodness, we’ve attracted the attention of a developmental biologist with all the sophisticated tech-niques of molecular genetics and biology.”

In dozens of papers and two books, including the seminal “Digit Ratio” in 2002, Manning has studied the meaning of the relative lengths of second and fourth digits in humans, known to scientists as the 2D:4D ratio.

“When Zheng and Cohn blocked testosterone recep-tors, they got a female digit ratio,” Manning said. “When they added testosterone they got super male ratios, and

when they added estrogen, super female ratios. And they’ve provided us with a list of 19 genes that are sensitive to prenatal testosterone and prenatal estrogen.

“I find this completely convincing and very useful,” Manning said. “We can now be more focused in our exam-ination of the links between digit ratio and sex-dependent behaviors, diseases of the immune system, cardiovascu-lar disorders and a number of cancers.”

Cohn, who uses the tools of genetics, genomics and molecular biology to study limb development, said his lab began studying the digit ratios after Zheng became determined to find an explanation.

“He suggested that the 2D:4D ratio would be an interesting question, and I have to admit to being skepti-cal,” Cohn said. “When he came back with the initial results, I was blown away. We looked at each other’s hands, then got busy planning the next experiment.”

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute supported this research.

Martin Cohn, [email protected] Zheng, [email protected]

John Pastor

College of Medicine

Ring fingeR pRopoRtions offeR health insights

Biologists at the University of Florida have found a reason why men’s ring fingers are generally longer than their index fingers — and why the reverse usually holds true for women.

Scan the QR code with your smart-phone to see video about this research.

Page 5: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

Explore 5

College of Liberals Arts and Sciences

tundRa fiRes Could aCCeleRate Climate WaRming

After a 10,000-year absence, wildfires have returned to the Arctic tundra, and a Uni-versity of Florida study shows that their impact could extend far beyond the areas blackened by flames.

In a study published in the the journal Nature in July, UF ecologist Michelle Mack and a team of scientists including fellow UF ecologist Ted Schuur quantified the amount of soil-bound carbon released into the atmosphere in the 2007 Anaktuvuk River fire, which covered more than 400 square miles on the North Slope of Alaska’s Brooks Range. The 2.1 million metric tons of carbon released in the fire — roughly twice the amount of greenhouse gases put out by the city of Miami in a year — is significant enough to suggest that Arctic fires could impact the global climate, said Mack, an asso-ciate professor of ecosystem ecology in UF’s department of biology.

“The 2007 fire was the canary in the coal mine,” Mack said. “In this wilder-ness, hundreds of miles away from the nearest city or source of pollution, we’re seeing the effects of a warm-ing atmosphere. It’s a wakeup call that the Arctic carbon cycle could change rapidly, and we need to know what the consequences will be.”

Smoke from the fire pumped greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, but that’s just one part of a tundra fire’s potential impact. The fire also con-sumed up to 30 percent of the insulating layer of organic matter that protects the permafrost beneath the tundra’s shrub- and

moss-covered landscape.In a pine forest, fire

would burn up leaf litter on the ground but not the soil beneath. Because the Arctic tundra has a carbon-rich, peaty soil, however, the ground itself is combustible, and when the fire recedes, some of the soil is gone. In a double whammy, the vulner-able permafrost is not only more exposed but also cov-ered by blackened ground, which absorbs more of the sun’s heat and could acceler-ate thawing.

“When the permafrost warms, microbes will begin to decompose that organic matter and could release even more carbon that’s been stored in the permafrost for hundreds or thousands of years into the atmosphere,” Mack said. “If that huge stock of carbon is released, it could increase atmospheric carbon dioxide drastically.”

The study shows how isolated fires can have a widespread impact, said University of Alaska biol-ogy professor Terry Chapin. “When you think about the massive carbon stocks and massive area of tundra throughout the world, and its increasing vulnerability to fire as climate warms, it sug-gests that fire may become the dominant factor that governs the future carbon balance of this biome,” Chapin said. “The paper by Michelle and her colleagues raises this possibility for the first time. It presents a very

different perspective on the way in which climate change may affect this biome in the future.”

Using radiocarbon dating, co-author Schuur and researchers from the Uni-versity of Alaska Fairbanks, the Alaska Fire Service and Woods Hole Marine Bio-logical Laboratory found that carbon up to 50 years old had been burned in the 2007 fire.

Mack also developed a new method that can now be used by other tundra researchers to measure soil loss. By comparing the tus-socks of sedge plants, which resprout after a fire, Mack was able to quantify soil heights and densities before and after the burn.

Mack hopes her find-ings will open a dialogue about how tundra fires are managed. Because the

Anaktuvuk River fire was in a wilderness area, it was not suppressed or contained. With better data on the long-term impact of tundra fire on global climate warming, Mack says, putting out these fires might become more of a priority.

“This fire was a big wakeup call, and it can happen again, not just in Alaska but in other parts of the Arctic, like Canada and Russia,” Mack said. “Sup-pressing a fire in the wilder-ness is costly, but what if the fire causes the permafrost to melt? We need to have that discussion.”

Michelle Mack, [email protected]

Alisson Clark

This image from NASA’s MODIS satellite shows the North Slope of Alaska and the Anaktuvuk River, with the scar from a 2007 fire clearly visible in the lower right quadrant.

NAS

A

Page 6: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

6 Fall 2011

Extracts

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

lava deposits Reveal haiti’s geologiCal Roots

UF geologists analyzing samples from an ancient volcanic eruption in Haiti were sur-prised to find that portions of Hispaniola’s rocky interior actually originated from a source more than 1,000 miles away.

When the team first col-lected the samples more than 20 years ago, they noticed that the lava had higher levels of alkaline elements than the surrounding volcanic rock and lavas typically found in the Caribbean. But the tech-nology available at that time could yield no deeper analysis to explain the anomaly, so the samples were shelved.

In 2004 the UF geology department purchased a

study finds Cats aRe moCkingbiRd nests’ numbeR one pRedatoR

Florida Museum of Natural History

A new study by researchers at the Florida Museum of Natural History indicates that cats are the dominant predator to mocking-bird nests in urban areas.

Using small security cameras, researchers filmed northern mockingbird nests in urban and natural habitats around the vicinity of Gaines-ville, Fla., during the nesting seasons from 2007 to 2009. They found that cats were responsible for more than 70 percent of the predator attacks on mockingbird nests.

The 57 incidents captured on tape showed that Cooper’s hawks were the most success-ful mockingbird nest preda-tors in rural areas. But cats were the most common nest predators in urban areas.

The study focused on mockingbirds, but the researchers said that it could be assumed that the cats were predating other songbirds’ nests in similar numbers.

Most of the attacks hap-pened at night, which made it difficult to determine if the cats were feral or domesti-cated. However, the research-ers said that some of the cats were wearing collars.

Christine Stracey, [email protected]

Danielle Torrent

Post-doctoral researcher Christine Stracey prepares to weigh a mockingbird hatchling in a Gainesville residential neighborhood in 2007 as part of a study showing that cats are the dominant predator to mockingbird eggs and nestlings in urban areas. The study used video cameras to monitor nest predators.

state-of-the-art plasma mass spectrometer that could break down the samples to their most basic atomic ingredi-ents. Those basic ingredients include unique isotope ratios and trace elements — sort of an “inorganic DNA”— that can be used to trace a sample back to its original source.

Researchers using the new equipment recently reexam-ined the samples and traced them to bedrock underlying

much of Central and South America.

The geologists suspect that tens of millions of years ago portions of the earth’s mantle underlying what is now Central and South America became embedded in Hispan-iola’s landmass as the Carib-bean tectonic plate shifted eastward between North and South America. The hitch-hiking mantle rock melted and erupted to the surface as

lava less than 1 million years ago when fault lines crossing Haiti violently ripped open.

The researchers say that the volcanic eruptions in Haiti 1 million years ago were unusual because all other active volcanism in that area appears to have stopped more than 30 million years ago.

George D. Kamenov, [email protected] R. Perfit, [email protected]

Donna Hesterman

Research by two UF geologists has found that the rocks underlying the island of Hispaniola, home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic, actually migrated more than 1,000 miles during the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana tens of millions of years ago.

Haiti

CaRibbean teCtoniC plate

Page 7: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

Explore 7

College of Medicine

a neW option foR ContRol of feRal Cats

Because feral cats do not typically live more than five years in the wild, the research-ers said that the period of effectiveness should be enough to reduce feral cat numbers in most cases. The drug is not intended for use in pets because pet owners prefer their cats to be sterilized permanently.

The vaccine, GonaCon, is already registered by the Environmental Protection Agency for use in controlling fertility in white-tailed deer, and the researchers said that they hope the drug will soon be approved for cats.

Current trap-neuter-return methods for controlling

 UF researchers, in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, report that a single-dose contraceptive vaccine effectively controls fertility in adult female cats for up to five years.

Dr. Julie Levy of the UF College of Veterinary Medicine led a study

showing that a single-dose contraceptive

vaccination could aid efforts to humanely

manage free-roaming cat populations in the

United States.

feral cat populations are expensive and labor-intensive. Although surgical sterilization offers the benefit of perma-nent infertility, there are many regions in the United States and internationally that lack adequate access to spay and neuter services to humanely manage cats in their communities. A single-dose vaccine would likely be a welcome addition to the more costly, time-consuming methods and surgical pro-grams currently employed by municipalities across the country.

Julie Levy, [email protected]

Sarah Carey

a banneR yeaR foR the institute

of food and agRiCultuRal

sCienCes bRought in $128

million, a 25-peRCent inCRease

oveR 2010 funding. total

ReseaRCh funding foR the

univeRsity Was doWn by 8.7

peRCent fRom last yeaR due

mostly to ReduCtions in fedeRal

stimulus spending.

All Other Academic Units

$56M

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

$46M IFAS$128M

7%9%

52%

21%11%

College ofEngineering

$66M

Health Science Center$323M

uf ReseaRCh funding at $619 million foR 2011

Scan the QR code with your smartphone to see video about this research.

Page 8: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

8 Fall 2011

ExtractsCenter of Excellence in Marine Genomics

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

ReseaRCheRs Revamp the mollusks family tRee

Seemingly simple animals like snails and squid have ransacked the genetic toolkit over the last half billion years to find dif-ferent ways to build complex brains, nervous systems and shells.

Using genomics and computational approaches, an international team of researchers, including a UF neuroscientist with the Whit-ney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience, has reconstructed the evolutionary history of the entire phylum Mollusca. Mollusca includes more than 100,000 living species, ranging from giant squid to microscopic marine worm-like creatures.

One of the surprising outcomes of the study sug-gests that the formation of a complex brain in mollusks has independently occurred at least four times during

the course of evolution — a finding that may prove useful to regenerative medicine scientists trying to develop new ways to help people with degenerative brain diseases.

By looking at the genomic data collected from the various classes and families of mollusks, the scientists were able to better understand the relationships between worm-like aplacophorans, slugs and snails, octopuses and squid, and a variety of shell-produc-ing creatures.

Researchers extracted RNAs from dozens of marine organisms for sequencing and backed that information

making plastiCs fRom yaRd Waste

They’ve developed a way to produce plastic that doesn’t use valuable natural resources, such as food or fuel, for raw materials.

The new method uses a strain of bacteria to create bioplastic from discarded plant material, such as yard waste.

Bioplastic, or plastic from renewable resources, is pro-duced when an organism such as a bacterium creates lactic acid while fermenting carbo-hydrates. The lactic acid can then be converted into long

chains of molecules to form plastic.

Current bioplastic produc-tion uses food carbohydrates, such as cane sugar or corn starch, as raw materials. Tra-ditional plastic production requires petroleum.

Keelnatham Shanmugam, a UF microbiology and cell science professor, Lonnie Ingram, a distinguished professor in microbiol-ogy and cell science, and their co-workers made the development. Their research

Plastic may compete with paper in the grocery line, but it doesn’t have to compete with the world’s food supply, according to University of Florida researchers.

with all publicly banked data, revealing for the first time a blueprint of the molluscan life history on Earth.

The study noted that cephalopod mollusks — octopuses and squid that are known for intelligence — represent one of the earliest branches of shelled mollusks, while simpler mollusks such

as clams and oysters evolved later.

Organisms like sea slugs and the octopuses are thought to be good biomedical models for understanding learn-ing, memory and disease in people, the researchers said.

Leonid L. Moroz, [email protected]

John Pastor

Leonid Moroz

Keelnatham Shanmugam, a

microbiology and cell science professor, is developing ways to make plastics out of

organic material like yard waste.

appeared in the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology.

“As we start using more and more bioplastics, we are infringing upon the use of food material,” said Shanmu-gam. “We’d like to switch away from food-based carbo-hydrates to non-food-based carbohydrates for producing plastics.”

Using discarded plant material to produce plastic helps keep commodity prices down. The plastic produced from the process is both biodegradable and recyclable, Shanmugam said.

In the study, the research-ers tested the bacterium

Page 9: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

Explore 9

— Bacillus coagulans strain 36D1 — for its ability to produce lactic acid in a vari-ety of conditions typical of bioplastic production. The bacterium was collected from a geyser in Calistoga, Calif., which was one of the many places the researchers sampled for bacteria.

Previous attempts to produce lactic acid from dis-carded plant materials using microorganisms have not yielded enough lactic acid and weren’t cost effective.

However, Shanmugam and Ingram found that by adding calcium carbonate to the process, they achieved lactic acid yields as high as

Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

aCoustiC monitoRs Could help gRape gRoWeRs thRive

Help may be on the way for grape growers in the southeast battling a crop-devouring pest called the grape root borer.

The grape root borer, a wasp-looking moth, lays its eggs on the leaves of grape-vines along the east coast from Virginia to Florida. When the eggs hatch, hungry little larvae drop to the ground, tunnel down to the plant’s roots and devour major portions of the plant’s root system — depriving the vine of the nourishment it needs to thrive.

Once the larvae have eaten their fill, they burrow back to the surface, transform into their adult moth form and begin the cycle anew by laying eggs on the leaves.

Growers have few defenses against the pest. The only pesticide known

to be effective against the moth is also toxic to birds, fish and bees. And mound-ing — piling up dirt near the base of the plant stem to stop an infestation — is labor intensive.

But what if you could tell exactly where the moth larvae were feasting?

UF researchers recently tested a device previously used to detect pests in grain silos to see if it could also help grape growers in their battle against the root borer. The device, called an accel-erometer, “listens” for telltale sounds of munching and crunching underground.

After testing the device in vineyards in Florahome

A field researcher listens to the accelerometer in a Florida vineyard.

those achieved by organ-isms that fermented food carbohydrates.

Additionally, the heat-tol-erant bacterial strain also cut production costs significantly by allowing the process to run at a higher temperature, which reduced the amount of expensive, plant-digesting enzymes required by up to four times.

Cost savings are also achieved by eliminating the need for food carbohydrates as raw materials since dis-carded plant waste is less expensive. For example, using straw as a raw material is 13 times less expensive than sugar and five times less

expensive than corn or wheat.Mark Ou, a UF biological

scientist and the study’s lead author, said increases in oil prices over the last several years have led to more interest in petroleum alternatives for plastic production.

“If we can save some of our oil and turn our plants into our plastic cups and packag-ing, then we can increase our national security by reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” Ou said.

Keelnatham Shanmugam, [email protected]

Robert H. Wells

and Lithia, Florida, the researchers determined that the device could not tell a root borer from other subter-ranean insects. However, it could be used to determine which areas were pest-free, and that could reduce the

number of plants that require mounding by as much as 75% — a substantial savings in time and money for grow-ers in the southeast.

Will Sander, [email protected]

Richard Mankin, [email protected]

Mickie Anderson

Rich

ard

Man

kin

Page 10: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

10 Fall 2011

ExtractsdisCoveRy Could make leds moRe affoRdable

University of Florida researchers may help resolve the public debate over America’s future light source of choice: Edison’s incan-descent bulb or the more energy-efficient compact fluorescent lamp.

It could be neither.Instead, America’s future

lighting needs may be sup-plied by a new breed of light- emitting diode, or LED, that conjures light from the invis-ible world of quantum dots. According to an article in the the journal Nature Photonics, moving a QD LED from the lab to market is a step closer to reality thanks to a new manufacturing process pio-neered by two research teams in UF’s department of materi-als science and engineering.

“Our work paves the way to manufacture efficient and stable quantum dot-based LEDs with really low cost, which is very important if we want to see widespread com-mercial use of these LEDs in large-area, full-color flat-panel displays or as solid-state lighting sources to replace the existing incandescent and fluorescent lights,” said Jian-geng Xue, the research leader and an associate professor of materials science and engi-neering “Manufacturing costs will be significantly reduced for these solution-processed devices, compared to the conventional way of making semiconductor LED devices.”

A significant part of the research carried out by Xue’s team focused on improving existing organic LEDs. These semiconductors are multilay-ered structures made up of paper-thin organic materials, such as polymer plastics, used to light up display systems in computer monitors, television screens, as well as smaller devices such as MP3 players,

mobile phones, watches and other handheld electronic devices. OLEDs are also becoming more popular with manufacturers because they use less power and gener-ate crisper, brighter images than those produced by conventional LCDs (liquid crystal displays). Ultra-thin OLED panels are also used as replacements for tradi-tional light bulbs and may be the next big thing in 3-D imaging.

Complementing Xue’s team is another headed by Paul Holloway, distinguished professor of materials sci-ence and engineering at UF, which delved into quantum dots, or QDs. These nano-particles are tiny crystals just a few nanometers (billionths of a meter) wide, comprised of a combination of sulfur, zinc, selenium and cadmium atoms. When excited by elec-tricity, QDs emit an array of colored light. The individual colors vary depending on the size of the dots. Tuning, or “adjusting,” the colors is achieved by controlling the size of the QDs during the synthetic process.

By integrating the work of both teams, researchers created a high-performance hybrid LED, comprised of both organic and QD-based layers. Until recently, how-ever, engineers at UF and elsewhere have been vexed by a manufacturing problem that hindered commercial develop-ment. An industrial process known as vacuum deposition is the common way to put the

necessary organic molecules in place to carry electricity into the QDs. However, a different manufacturing process, called spin-coating, is used to create a very thin layer of QDs. Having to use two separate processes slows down production and drives up manufacturing costs.

According to the Nature Photonics article, UF research-ers overcame this obstacle with a patented device struc-ture that allows for depositing all the particles and molecules needed onto the LED entirely with spin-coating. Such a device structure also yields significantly improved device efficiency and lifetime com-pared to previously reported QD-based LED devices.

Spin-coating may not be the final manufacturing solu-tion, however.

“In terms of actual prod-uct manufacturing, there are many other high through-put, continuous “roll-to-roll” printing or coating processes

College of Engineering

that we could use to fabricate large area displays or lighting devices,” Xue said. “That will remain as a future research and development topic for the university and a start-up com-pany, NanoPhotonica, that has licensed the technology and is in the midst of a tech-nology development program to capitalize on the manufac-turing breakthrough.”

Other co-authors of this article are Lei Qian and Ying Zheng, two postdoctoral fel-lows who worked with the professors on this research. The UF research teams received funding from the Army Research Office, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Florida Energy Sys-tems Consortium.

Jiangeng Xue, [email protected]

Paul Holloway, [email protected]

John Dunn

Ying Zheng, vice president and chief engineer at NanoPhotonica, demonstrates color-saturated light emission from quantum dot LEDs.

John

Jern

igan

Page 11: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

Explore 11

univeRs ity of floRida

RESEARCH in the neWs

U.S. News and World Report quoted UF economics professor, Stanley Smith, in an article about the 10 U.S. cities with the oldest average populations. Five of the cities were in Florida.

The article reported that some cities’ mean ages rise because young people move away, but that isn’t the case in Florida. Florida’s average age is higher because many people move there to retire. Smith cited Florida’s low taxes as a draw for retirees. The article said that older people tend to flock to cities with an abundance of retire-ment communities, pleasant weather and amenities that appeal to seniors.

The New York Times reported the results of a study by Stephen Grobmyer, direc-tor of the UF Breast Center that showed surgical breast biopsies were being used too extensively.

Needle biopsies are safer, less invasive and cheaper than surgical biopsies, according to the article, but doctors are opting for surgical biopsies at three times the rate current medical guidelines would suggest.

The article reported that Grobmyer and his colleagues started the research because they kept seeing patients referred from other hospitals who had undergone surgical biopsies when a needle biopsy should have been used.

The article suggested that doctors are choosing surgery over needle biopsies because they do not want to refer their patient to a radiologist and lose the biopsy fee.

Zhong-Ren Peng, chair-man of UF’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning, was quoted in a National Geographic News article about the 2011 winner of the Sustainable Transport Award.

Peng is an expert in transportation planning in China. In the article he said that the city of Guangzhou did a lot of work upgrading its infrastructure when it was preparing to host the Asian Games November 2010.

Guangzhou received the award in recognition of its state-of-the-art bus system, which ties in with the city rail network, and an abun-dance of tree-lined bike paths that make the city greener and more accessible for citi-zens at every income level.

Scott Tomar, UF professor of dentistry, was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article that announced the federal government was lowering its recommended limit for the amount of fluoride to be added to U.S. water supplies.

A five-year study con-ducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Preven-tion found that many kids between the ages of 8 and 12 were showing signs of dental fluorosis, a condition caused by an excess of fluoride in the diets of children under the age of 8.

The condition is not harmful, but it causes spotting and streaking on the teeth because fluoride causes the tooth enamel to become more opaque and dense. Tomar said that extra fluoride doesn’t affect adult teeth because their enamel is already formed.

An article in the London Telegraph tells the true story that inspired the Warner Brothers film, “Dolphin Tale.”

The film’s star, a dolphin named Winter, was brought as a baby to an aquarium in Clearwater, Florida to be rehabilitated after an accident severed her tail from her body. While there, she was treated by a caring staff and was eventually fitted with a prosthetic tail that enabled her to learn how to swim.

The article mentions Mike Walsh, associate director of aquatic animal health at the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, who treated the young dolphin in 2005 when she was brought to the aquarium.

In the film, Harry Con-nick Jr. plays a character loosely based on Walsh.

UF researchers use a thermography camera to study the effect of the prosthetic tail on Winter’s sensitive skin.

Stanley Smith

Scott Tomar

Page 12: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

12 Fall 2011UF tree physiologist Tim Martin examines a loblolly pine in the Austin Cary Memorial Forest north of Gainesville.

Page 13: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

rive any distance on a rural road in the Southeast and you’re likely to come upon

rows of pine trees standing at attention like so many soldiers awaiting their orders.

By Tom Nordlie

They are the descendents of a vast carpet of longleaf pines that blanketed as much as 60 million acres of southeastern North America when European settlers first arrived. Almost all of those old-growth forests are gone now, replaced first by farms, then cities and planted pine forests.

Today, more than 80 percent of the 25 million acres of second- and third-growth forest that succeeded them are loblolly, a fast-growing native species that is the raw material for every-thing from roof trusses to cellophane.

About half are on large, corporate-owned pine plantations, with the other half scattered on smaller tracts of land owned by individuals. But all have enormous importance, economically and environmentally. Southeastern pine provides about 16 percent of the world’s lumber, and the forest products industry accounts for more than 5 percent of jobs in the Southeast. The trees also filter water, control erosion and provide wildlife habitat.

Like so many other ecosystems, however, Southern pine forests face new challenges from global climate change, includ-ing reduced summer rainfall, higher temperatures and increased

Universities and growers

are helping the South’s

most abundant pine species

adapt to climate change

Explore 13

egacy

Eric

Zam

ora

Page 14: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

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disease and pest pressures. At the same time, loblolly could help to offset the impacts of climate change by serving as a vehicle to lock up atmospheric carbon for centuries.

Earlier this year, a team of researchers with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences won a five-year, $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to address both sides of this equation, helping Southeastern loblolly grow-ers adapt to climate change and contribute to global carbon sequestration.

“There hasn’t been much focus on climate change by forest managers and landowners, partly because little information is available on the best way forward to prepare for those changes,” says tree physiologist Tim Martin, a professor with UF’s School of Forest Resources and Conservation and principal investiga-tor for the loblolly project. “This project provides an unprec-edented opportunity to integrate forestry research, outreach and education in the region, to address this important societal challenge.”

Pine Integrated Network: Education, Mitigation and Adaptation Project, or PINEMAP, involves 11 land-grant universities and numerous forestry research cooperatives and government agencies in 10 Southeastern states. The 50 scien-tists collaborating on the project are led by Martin, Gary Peter and Martha Monroe of the UF forest resources school and Tom Fox of Virginia Tech.

The team’s goal is to enable current and future landowners and forest managers to do three things: harness planted pine to reduce levels of atmospheric carbon; more efficiently use fertil-izer, water and other inputs; and adapt forest management to keep planted pine healthy in the face of climate change.

Capturing CarbonAs atmospheric carbon has increased, many proposals have emerged for ways to capture and store it some-where, including injecting it deep into the ground or

the oceans. But pine trees have been sequestering carbon for eons, pulling it out of the atmosphere and converting it into wood, roots, bark and needles. In effect, trees act as living storage facilities for atmospheric carbon. Durable materials made from pine, such as lumber, will keep carbon sequestered indefinitely.

“About a third of the sequestered carbon in the United States is stored in Southeastern forests,” Martin says, “and every year, just by virtue of their growth, southern forests sequester about 13 percent of the carbon emissions in the region, so they’re very important for offsetting carbon emission.”

Because loblolly grows faster than most pines, it’s ideally suited for sequestering carbon. That fact, plus loblolly’s status

as the dominant species in the Southeastern pine industry, made it the ideal focus for PINEMAP.

“We understand loblolly very well and we understand how to manipulate its management to increase carbon sequestra-tion,” Martin says.

“Sequestration won’t stop atmospheric carbon levels from rising, but it can be an important component in slowing the rise,” he adds. “But while we wait on other solutions, such as alternative energy sources, improved forest management can be implemented immediately.”

One of the keys to carbon sequestration is simply getting loblolly to soak up as much carbon dioxide as possible. Geoff Lokuta, a PINEMAP technician, is conducting field work to assess how much carbon dioxide is produced by plant roots and decay organisms in forest soils.

In planted forests around the state, Lokuta takes measure-ments to determine how much carbon dioxide wafts up from the soil. Then, using sophisticated computer programs, Lokuta and his supervisor, Eric Jokela, a professor in UF’s forest resources school, make projections on the effects elevated temperatures may have on the microbes, and whether these changes may reduce the net amount of carbon stored by loblolly forests. Ultimately, Lokuta and Jokela hope to provide data that can guide development of improved loblolly varieties that continue storing carbon despite altered climate.

One of the strengths of the PINEMAP project is that for decades pine tree growers have teamed with university and government scientists in research cooperatives that combine the scientific resources of the universities with the industrial resources of the growers. Today, cooperative members manage more than half of the Southeast’s privately owned planted pine forests, and produce 95 percent of the pine seedlings planted each year.

At thousands of sites throughout loblolly’s range, these co-ops conduct field studies, collect germplasm, develop

“We understand loblolly very well and we understand

how to manipulate its management to increase

carbon sequestration.”

—Tim Martin

Page 15: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

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improved pine varieties through traditional breeding and carry out myriad other activities. Over the past half century, they’ve amassed an enormous body of knowledge about how to grow loblolly pine successfully.

“Over the years, researchers at the different universities have built relationships with land managers,” Martin says. “We have a high degree of trust and very close associations with these industrial land managers.”

Eight research cooperatives are participating in PINE-MAP. Two are based at UF: the Cooperative Forest Genetics Research Program, established in 1953 and the oldest of the eight; and the Forest Biology Research Cooperative, estab-lished in 1996. Major southeastern pine producers typically belong to at least one co-op.

“We’re involved with all of them,” says Jim Gent, a manager of forest research with Jacksonville-based Rayonier, one of the country’s largest landowners. The company owns, leases or manages almost 1.5 million acres of forestland in Florida, Georgia and Alabama, much of it planted in loblolly. “The co-ops are a real good way for us to leverage our research dollars.”

Gary Peter, a co-director of both UF-based cooperatives, believes that involvement with the co-ops was a major reason the team was awarded the grant.

“Another group that didn’t have our accumulated data would have to establish new trials and wait, or pay to get it,” Peter says. “The industry helps steer and guide the questions we explore in the co-ops, and the same will hold true in PINE-MAP, which makes sense, because industry people are the ones who will put our findings into practice.”

Peter specializes in plant genomics — the identification and study of plant genes and their functions. As PINEMAP’s leader for climate-change adaptation, his responsibilities include identifying genetic traits in existing loblolly varieties that would enable the trees to thrive under warmer, drier conditions and then incorporating those traits into new varieties that grow quickly and yield high-quality wood and pulp.

“Southern pines haven’t been genetically manipulated much,” Peter says. “Over the last 50 years of tree improvement,

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most of the information collected has been on the genetics of natural trees, so the prior trials inform our knowledge about regionwide variation in germplasm.”

For instance, loblolly native to the western part of its natural range evolved to cope with reduced rainfall and wider temperature swings, but it doesn’t grow as fast as the material from the eastern coastal zone, Peter says.

“So the aim is to combine the adaptation to drought with improved productivity,” he said.

Another area where adaptation is needed is on damaging insects such as the notorious southern pine beetle, which is expected to breed more quickly and become more common as temperatures rise. Peter and UF colleague John Davis are searching the co-op data to find and develop loblolly germ-plasm that’s more insect resistant.

Doctoral student Jared Westbrook is investigating a natural defense mechanism pines use to discourage insect attacks — resin flow. When wood-destroying insects bore through bark to begin colonizing a tree, it responds by pushing sticky resin through the holes to expel the invaders. But not all loblolly varieties are equally successful with this strategy. By making standardized wounds in trees and collecting resin over a set time period, Westbrook is identifying varieties that would be good candidates for crossbreeding.

In the laboratory, geneticists are working to pinpoint individ-ual genes that control resin flow and other desirable traits. This may lead to genetic engineering of improved loblolly varieties, something that hasn’t been done before to any notable degree.

Getting all this new information out to landowners and forest managers is the job of UF environmental education and extension Professor Martha Monroe, who will work with natural resource extension agents and teachers throughout the Southeast.

Among Monroe’s responsibilities are bringing extension agents up to speed on climate change and how forest manage-ment could enhance carbon sequestration; providing educa-tion programs for students; and assessing public perception of climate change and learning more about the barriers and incentives that will promote change in forest management.

The project will create an undergraduate intern program and support dozens of graduate students and postdoctoral associates.

“These undergraduate, graduate and postdoc opportunities are essential to the success of the project, and also to helping change the future,” Monroe says. “Our students will become the next generation of scientists and educators. We are helping them develop the skills to work across disciplinary lines to solve complex problems.”

Most of the carbon stored by trees is locked into the walls of water-conducting xylem cells in roots, stems and branches.

Trees in PINEMAP experiments are outfitted with instruments to monitor their responses to altered

soil, water and nutrient availability.

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Planning For TodayFor the professional foresters who make their living growing loblolly, PINEMAP is a welcome effort —

but not just because of climate-change concerns, says Marshall Jacobson, a forest productivity manager for Plum Creek, a timber company that is the nation’s largest private landowner. In Florida alone, Plum Creek practices forestry on 590,000 acres in 22 counties.

“I’m concerned with what it takes to grow trees better all the time,” says Jacobson, based in Athens, Ga. “My interest, and what the project promises, is to give us the science to react to whatever might come — production issues, problems, opportunities.”

This sentiment is echoed by other industry personnel who’ll be involved in PINEMAP.

“We do think about climate change and its potential impli-cations,” Gent says. “But there will be increased pressure for pine trees as a resource, because of interest in biomass energy. On top of that, there will be increased conversion of forestland to other uses, like housing developments. So we’ll need to grow more wood on less land to stay profitable.”

There’s another economic aspect, says Plum Creek’s Ben Dow, resource supervisor for the company’s Florida penin-sular holdings. It’s the supply chain, which encompasses

the demand for southeastern pine products and the various sources that can meet those needs.

“There will be increased global consumption of this resource from the manufacturing of southern pine products,” Dow said. “We need to know how the changes in global consumption will be balanced by the changes in southern pine growth.”

So regardless of how much the Earth’s atmosphere may heat up in the coming decades, forest productivity is something producers worry about now, every day. Still, they’re well aware that pine trees have the capacity to mitigate the threat of global warming, simply by growing tall and healthy.

“Anything we can do to manage forests more effectively will help us address these issues more effectively,” Gent says.

But it’s not just the needs of the big companies that PINE-MAP addresses. The project will also target people who grow pine trees on small tracts of land, Peter says. Though scattered, they account for almost half of Southeastern pine production.

“We also have a nicely established network through the cooperative extension service to take research from the univer-sities and extend that to non-industrial landowners,” Martin says. “Extension agents and county foresters have established relationships with family farmers, so they can take research developed in the PINEMAP project and extend it to those land managers really efficiently.”

“One aspect of this work will be to develop loblolly varieties suitable for production on marginal lands that smallholders aren’t currently farming,” Peter says. If PINEMAP can offer ways to turn a profit from farmland that’s currently not in use, that’s a plus for landowners who may be struggling to make ends meet. The key is being able to demonstrate that follow-ing PINEMAP recommendations will yield benefits that help farmers as they help fight global climate change.

If planted pine isn’t profitable, Peter says, landowners may be tempted to sell their forests to developers. If that happens, most of the trees will be cleared away, and with them their potential for carbon sequestration. So, in a sense, PINEMAP’s mission comes down to one fundamental idea — making planted pine too valuable to do without. Tim MartinProfessor of Tree Physiology School of Forest Resources and Conservation(352) [email protected]

Martha MonroeProfessor of Environmental Education and Extension School of Forest Resources and Conservation(352) [email protected]

Gary PeterProfessor of Forest Genomics and Cell Biology School of Forest Resources and Conservation(352) [email protected]

Related website:http://pinemap.org/

“There will be increased global consumption of this resource

from the manufacturing of southern pine products. We need to know how the changes in global consumption will be balanced by the changes in southern pine growth.”

—Ben Dow

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According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), more than 1,700 species of seafood from around the world find their way to American markets. In addition, more than 80 percent of all seafood consumed by Americans is now imported. With so much fish making so many stops, inspec-tion is tough. Critics also say enforcement is lax.

Processed fish products, cooked, battered and dressed with sauces, make identification even harder. Who can correctly identify mixed samples of pasteurized crab meat?

For years, the seafood industry has relied on isoelectric-focusing to identify fish. To do this inspectors zap a piece of questionable fish tissue with a controlled electrical field which causes proteins to form patterns that reveal the species.

Today, however, there’s a faster, more accurate way. By com-paring a “species specific” segment of seafood DNA to DNA from a taxonomically confirmed sample, testing labs like AFT can confirm the species beyond a shadow of a doubt.

In 2006, AFT became the first company to offer this “DNA barcoding” service to food suppliers. It was a timely move, because the FDA — which monitors fish supplies — was just beginning to recommend DNA barcoding over isoelectric-focusing. (IEF)

“AFT was one of the first private labs to switch over to this method,” says FDA spokesperson Stephanie Yao. “Therefore, it was one of the few labs the FDA could recommend to industry that would perform analyses FDA would consider acceptable.”

Applewhite, who learned the business during a decade, first as a graduate student and then an employee of UF’s Aquatic Food Products Laboratory, recognized early on that there was a need to develop an authenticated database of fish species she could use for reliable comparisons.

Seafood is an $80 billion-a-year busi-ness in the United States, where con-sumers each eat about 16 pounds of seafood annually. But as much as 25

percent of that seafood might not be what it claims to be. Paying $25 a pound for grouper? It could be Asian catfish worth $2 a pound. Mahi-mahi? It could be yellowtail.

While the average person may not even notice the difference, LeeAnn Applewhite is not the “average” seafood consumer.

Applewhite’s company, Applied Food Technologies (AFT), is one of the nation’s leading laboratories for authenticating seafood, consulting for such food service giants as Sysco and US Foods.

Out of its headquarters in UF’s Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator in Alachua, AFT is perfecting genetic testing that identifies processed fish with as much accuracy as scientifically possible.

Mislabeling of seafood is a growing international economic problem with fraud for some species, like red snapper, running as high as 75 percent.

Overfishing, along with a rising global demand, has created seafood shortages and a big incentive for fish suppliers to cheat — which isn’t hard to do when only 2 percent of seafood in the U.S. market is inspected.

Getting what you pay for isn’t the only issue. Safety is another. In 2007, for example, 600 people in Hong Kong became sick after consuming what they thought was Atlantic cod. Instead, they dined on escolar, or oil fish, which is known to cause diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems.

Applied Food Technologies collaborates with UF fish experts

to ensure the seafood you order is what you get

18 Fall 2011

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seafood

By John M. Dunn

Explore 19

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Not much in life beats a fresh grouper sandwich enjoyed with a cold beer

and an ocean view.But that experience is far less fun when

consumers discover they’re paying a res-taurant for fresh, locally caught grouper, yet eating farm-raised fish from thousands of miles away.

And sometimes they never do find out.UF researchers reported in 2010 that

57 percent of seafood-eating adults they surveyed would pay more if a labeling program guaranteed that sandwiches and other items contained fresh grouper caught in Florida.

The survey of 400 consumers was meant to show fishermen how much awareness there is about the knock-off fish problem and whether a labeling

So she turned to UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History, a world leader in identifying fish taxonomically, which is the science of identification using specific physical characteristics.

Applewhite worked out a deal where she sends the museum curators fish from around the world and for a fee they provide taxonomic information on the samples, give AFT a letter of validation that affirms the species, then store the samples as reference samples.

The relationship is a mutually beneficial one, says Rob Robins, senior biologist/collection manager for the Division of Ichthyology at the Florida Museum. Valuable specimens are added to the museum and AFT receives expert identifica-tion and has a place to store its index fish. The company also collaborates with the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Louisiana, the University of Kansas, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and the National Marine Fisher-ies Services to do some of the taxonomical work and issue let-ters of validation.

AFT keeps a sample of each fish tissue the museum iden-tifies, which it uses to develop a DNA profile for its database. Today, the company boasts information on more than 350 commercially important species and is adding new ones all the time.

“Nobody else has done what we’ve done,” says Applewhite. “There are many excellent DNA databases online that are good for basic research, but commercial groups specializing in identification for regulatory compliance testing are not allowed to use them.”

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program might be worth a closer look, says Chuck Adams, a professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agri-cultural Sciences and the Florida Sea Grant program.

“Basically we found that yes, peo-ple were aware of it, and we found that it had, in fact, affected their pur-chasing of seafood,” he says.

The Gulf & South Atlantic Fish-eries Foundation, Inc. paid for the $40,000 study, says Sherry Larkin, an associate professor in resource eco-nomics. Graduate student Andrew Ropicki worked on the survey as well.

The fishermen’s industry group wanted the survey information because they see their product being

Page 21: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

undercut by inferior imports, Larkin says.

The March 2009 survey found that 62 percent of respondents were aware that restaurants sometimes accidentally or deliberately substituted cheaper fish for grouper.

It also found that most consumers would be willing to pay anywhere from 83 cents to $3.13 more per entrée if it were labeled as authentic Florida-caught grouper, Larkin says.

Seafood substitution is by no means a problem just with grouper. The state's Division of Business and Profes-sional Regulation logs consumer com-plaints. Since 2006 there have been more than 1,100 reports of everything

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LeeAnn Applewhite of Applied Food Technologies and Rob Robins of the Florida Museum of Natural History examine fish samples provided by AFT in the museum’s ichthyology collection.

Explore 21

Applewhite worked out a deal where she sends the museum curators fish from around the world and for a fee they provide taxonomic information on the samples, give AFT a letter of validation that affirms the species, then store the samples as reference samples.

from imitation crab being passed off as real to “seafood nuggets” posing as scallops.

But fake grouper may be the hard-est to spot, the researchers say.

Many mild-tasting whitefish such as tilapia, basa and tra are often sold as grouper and, for most of us, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to tell the difference.

Here’s how to know, Adams says: A legal-size grouper will typically yield a fillet that’s too large for one serving. So if you get an entire fillet on your plate, it’s probably not the real stuff.

There’s not as much dark meat as you might get with mahi mahi or perhaps catfish, he says. And grouper

has a mild flavor — so if the flavor is strong, it’s either not grouper or isn’t fresh.

Grouper fillets also tend to be thicker and flake apart in nice, big chunks, he says.

But if most consumers can’t tell the difference, what’s the harm?

“Two things,” Larkin says. ”One is, if the product is not of high quality, it’s like, ‘I just paid $18 for something that’s … kind of OK.’ That doesn’t do very much for the reputation of the grouper. And two, consumers could just be blatantly overpaying.”

Chuck Adams, [email protected]

Mickie Anderson

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Applewhite says the problem with public databases is that anyone can submit any sequence to these databases.

“Using a public database to determine a fish species is not very useful because the data is only as accurate as the least careful person submitting sequences, thus, the DNA sequences for common substitutes can also appear in the database under the wrong name,” she says.

FDA’s Yao agrees: “Most other labs are pulling publically available sequences off of the Internet to make their identifi-cations, a practice FDA does not recommend for regulatory decisions.’’

Each fish has specific segments of DNA that are unique to its species. Applewhite’s team isolates these segments, then replicates them through a process called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, until it has enough to DNA sequence and then compare the sequence to its database of verified DNA.

While PCR is a common biotechnology technique, AFT has developed its own specialized chemicals called primers that pair with the species-specific segments of DNA in the test sample.

“The unique primers for each of the creatures brought to the museum are like keys to a lock,” says George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the museum.

Today, AFT divides its time equally between doing research and providing DNA services for customers such as US Foods, ASC Seafood, Sysco, Beaver Street Fisheries and numerous others in North America and Europe.

Some of the company’s work comes from government regulatory action. The FDA, for instance, “often runs samples for importers whose shipments are being held by the FDA and the FDA has released some of those shipments based on AFT’s results,” says Yao. “Most of these cases have been for catfish imported from China, for which there is a current FDA Import Alert for proper labeling.”

There is also evidence that AFT is helping to reduce fish fraud. Oceana

FISh qUIzFillets are one of the most easily disguised forms of fish, since many fish look similar without identifying features such as the skin, head and tail. See if you can identify which of these pairs of fillets are accurately labeled.

1. AtlAntic cod?

Answers: 1. Left photo is escolar or oilfish. 2. Left is Nile perch. 3. Right is mako shark. 4. Right is rockfish. 5. Left is farmed Atlantic salmon.

2. Grouper?

3. SwordfiSh?

4. red SnApper?

5. wild SAlmon?

U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors examine imported seafood in port and on shore. D

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“We’ve seen a significant reduction in misbranded imported grouper with our big customers that have steadily tested,” says Applewhite. “In 2006 we found 49 percent of the grouper we tested to be mislabeled; by the end of 2009 this had been reduced to 12 percent.”

The FDA’s Yao says AFT enjoys a strong position in the growing barcoding market: “Since AFT has been doing it the longest, they currently have the fewest issues with their ana-lytical worksheet packages that are submitted to the FDA.”

AFT, meanwhile, is growing and eventually will leave the incubator for a bigger facility in the Gainesville area. It has also recently acquired assets of another Sid Martin graduate, Eco Array, which will help the company expand its genetic work into the environmental field to screen new compounds for toxic effects and evaluate water quality.

When she’s not running her company, Applewhite, a UF alumna, manages to give guest-lectures every year in various departments at UF and participate in workshops, such as those at the university’s Shrimp School. Meanwhile, her company continues updating and refining its molecular methods, proce-dures and primers.

The use of DNA barcoding in seafood that Applewhite is helping to pioneer, however, won’t be enough to end mislabel-ing abuses. There must also be punitive fines levied against wrongdoers to level the business playing field, argues Bob Jones, executive director of the Southeastern Fisheries Associa-tion: “In the past the fines from the state have been like a slap on the wrist,” he says, “and considered as a cost of doing busi-ness by those who cheat.”

Jones also thinks, however, that the seafood industry needs more companies to emulate what Applewhite is doing. “Her work is well-respected and her reports are genuine,“ he says. “LeeAnn’s company searches for the truth.”

LeeAnn ApplewhiteCEO, Applied Food Technologies(386) [email protected]

Related website:http://www.appliedfoodtechnologies.com/

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LeeAnn Applewhite displays a grouper sample sent to Applied Food Technologies for verification. Technicians cut a small piece of fish from the sample and subject it to DNA testing, then compare the results against DNA from samples verified by the Florida Museum of Natural History.

“We’ve seen a significant reduction in misbranded imported grouper with our big customers that have steadily tested. In 2006 we found 49 percent of the grouper we tested to be mislabeled; by the end of 2009 this had been reduced to 12 percent.”

— LeaAnn Applewhite

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Explore 25 Photography by Ray Stanyard

By Frank StephenSon

Year 4

FarmErs Find thEmsElvEs in today.

From constant water woes to profit-killing fuel costs, from growing public fears over fertilizers, pesticides and weed killers to a volatile world economy, few will argue that today’s farmers have a long and troubling row to hoe.

But University of Florida agronomist david Wright thinks he has a way to make farming more profitable.

Wright is a farm-raised product himself, ascended from long, boyhood days working in tennessee tobacco fields. today he’s a seasoned agronomist based in the Florida Panhandle town of Quincy, home to the north Florida research and Education Center, one of 13 research centers tied to UF’s insti-tute of Food and agricultural sciences.

With his colleague Jim marois, a plant pathologist, Wright is now into his 12th year on a project that he’s convinced holds incalculable promise not only for improving american agri-culture but also for saving the country’s dwindling numbers of farming families.

“We know this system works,” Wright says. “We’ve got the data. now, it’s just a matter of getting people to understand it and give it a try.”

as it turns out, the “system” Wright beams about is nothing really new, just largely forgotten. Wright has become a latter-day evangelist for turning back the clock on modern

n o mattEr WhErE thEy tUrn, it’s a thorny FiEld

agriculture, preaching the many now-verifiable virtues of returning to a once-common method of farming that got plowed under during the rise of big agribusiness after World War ii.

in 1999, Wright and marois undertook a detailed, long-term look at a farming practice that once was commonplace throughout much of the U.s., particularly in the south. the practice essentially renourishes and reinvigorates soil by rotating standard commodity crops such as cotton and peanuts with hardy varieties of pasture grass.

Growing up, Wright saw farmers alternate their tobacco crops with fescue, a relative of ryegrass. Fescue is one of several species of forage grasses that flourish year-round. Because of how they grow — typically with thick and deep-running roots — such grasses are naturally capable of restoring spent crop-lands to their full growing potential. For his project in Quincy, Wright knew his best bet as a test grass would be bahia, and for good reason.

Bahia Benevolencea native of south america, bahiagrass can be thought of

as kudzu without the bad rap. since 1938, when a variety of bahia was found flourishing along the shores of Pensacola Bay, the plant has become the most common ground cover in the south. Easily recognizable by its black, seed-bearing, y-shaped crowns, bahia now covers tens of millions of acres from texas to south Carolina. For decades, cattle growers have used it as their herds’ primary forage crop.

But from the earliest days of bahia’s conquest of southern farmland in the early 1950s, crop farmers began discovering

A forgotten farming method gets a new look

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“Ask any farmer from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and they will tell you that if they had a choice of where to plant peanuts or cotton or even watermelons, it would be in a field

(recently covered with) bahiagrass. They knew they could count on higher

yields with fewer pest problems.”

— Jim Marois

what the grass could do for their fields of soybeans, peanuts and cotton.

“ask any farmer from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and they will tell you that if they had a choice of where to plant peanuts or cotton or even watermelons, it would be in a field (recently covered with) bahiagrass,” marois says. “they knew they could count on higher yields with fewer pest problems.”

But many of today’s farmers grew up reading from a script that dictates that to survive and be competitive in a global marketplace, farmers have to exploit economies of scale and “get big.” this typically means farming thousands of acres at a time, taking on heavy debt buying big machines and specializing in ways that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to rotate cash crops with perennial grasses such as bahia on any scale.

“a (retired) soybean farmer once asked me why in the ‘60s and ‘70s he could routinely grow up to 60 bushels of soybeans per acre, when today’s state average is only 30 bushels an acre,” Wright recalled. “i asked him how he grew his beans back then, and he says he used old pastureland (covered in) bahia-grass. Bingo! that’s the key.”

A Solid WinnerWhile the anecdotal evidence for rotating crops with bahia

is compelling, Wright and marois are scientists, so they teamed with colleagues from auburn University and the University of Georgia to run experiments that directly compared conventional farming techniques used for growing cotton and peanuts with those based on using bahia sod and cattle-grazing as part of the mix. the scope of the work, which was supported in part by grants from the U.s. department of agriculture, stretched from auburn-managed fields in southeast alabama to iFas’ 1,300-acre research center in marianna, Fla.

For years, the team tested the annual production of cotton and peanuts grown on large plots (up to 160 acres) of farm-land, using conventional tillage techniques in one plot and bahia-based, cattle-grazing tillage in another. Eventually the researchers settled on what could be called bahia sod-based conservation farming — a system that consistently shows better yields and numerous conservation benefits over the conventionally tilled acreage.

to make soil as rich and fertile as it can be, the iFas technique calls for an initial two-year growth of bahia and the introduction of cattle to graze it. after two years, the bahia is killed off in the fall and replaced by a cover crop of oats and rye, which feeds cattle through the winter months (cold weather typically makes bahia go dormant). a spring planting of peanuts follows, followed by another round of oats and rye in the fall for winter grazing. after that, cotton goes into the ground typically in may. on the heels of the cotton harvest, the fields are again sown with oats and rye but also with bahia seed, which cattle obligingly plant on their own as they graze. By late spring, the bahia is up and green and the rotation cycle is set to start over.

26 Fall 2011

UF agronomist David Wright, left, and plant pathologist Jim Marois

in an experimental field in Marianna. Inset, Bahiagrass.

Page 27: UF Explore Magazine Fall 2011

hands down, the bahia-sod system has proven to be a solid winner, both economically and environmentally, Wright says. despite initial startup costs — mainly from buying bahia seed and fertilizer and from planting — by year three the bahia-sod system showed its muscle. the peanut yield averaged more than 4,000 pounds per acre, nearly doubling the yield harvested from the conventionally farmed field right next door. the following year’s cotton crop from the bahia system showed dramatically superior numbers, too, producing nearly 1,000 pounds per acre, compared to only 650 pounds from the conventional plot.

aside from boosting crop yields by 50 percent and higher, the bahia system showed other benefits as well, including a natural ability to fight off nematodes and other pests — a trait that cut the need for pesticides in half, Wright says. and bahiagrass forms a dense root mass that helps control weeds, adds enormous amounts of organic matter to the soil and helps prevent erosion from wind and water.

For the past few years, local farmer larry Ford of malone, Fla., near marianna, has worked with Wright and marois on a contract basis to test bahia rotation in peanuts and cotton. he’s been impressed by what he’s seen.

“last year we produced about a bale of cotton (about 500 pounds) per acre on one of our (conventionally tilled) fields,” he said. “We tripled that on the bahia, and applied only about 70 pounds of (nitrogen) fertilizer per acre, compared to about 200 pounds per acre on the conventional field.”

in peanuts, he said he’s seen the biggest payoff in bahia sod’s ability to save time and costs in labor and fuel.

“With this (bahia) system, we won’t have to cultivate a field but two or three times all year, whereas in the other fields we’ll

have to make seven or eight trips out there. on top of that, in the bahia, we don’t have to apply any nematocide (a chemical that kills nematodes, a common soil-based pest).”

Growing Water Holesthe experiments also documented what may be bahia’s most

important benefit — especially for farmers in the southeast who face a common problem found just below the soil surface.

throughout the region, agricultural lands commonly get hardened, mainly from natural processes, just below the topsoil. this “hardpan” layer, as it’s called, can begin at depths of only six to eight inches and can extend up to 18 inches deep. hardpan presents an all-but-impenetrable barrier for both roots and water that even tractor-operated tilling tech-niques don’t go deep enough to break.

Bahia roots are powerful enough not only to penetrate hardpan but to bore up to six feet deep into even the toughest soils, opening them to water, air and — especially when cows are grazing above — a flood of nutrients. after two years of such treatment, Wright says that even worn-out soils are transformed into thick, luxuriant layers of organic material with high water-holding capacity and large communities of nutrient-producing earthworms.

“this allows the roots of peanuts, cotton and other crops to grow past the hardpan and reach more water and nutrients over an extended period of time,” Wright says.

his team has shown that even without irrigation, fields of bahia-rotated cotton have been able to out-perform their irrigated counterparts, thanks to their greater rooting depth. Considering that “water wars” — once primarily the bane of

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“Once you get into a system like this, by your fourth year you should be doing well. If you’re growing cotton and peanuts, you can make as much profit with this sod-based rotation in one year as you can in two to four with the standard rotation system.”

— David Wright

Before Sod Rotation

Crop

After Sod Rotation

Bahiagrass = More Crops, Less Water

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“With this (bahia) system, we won’t have to cultivate a field but two or three times all year, whereas in the other fields we’ll have to make seven or eight trips out there. On top of that, in the bahia, we don’t have to apply any nematocide.”

— Larry Ford

western and midwestern states — now threaten everything east of the mississippi, bahia’s ability to save water ultimately may prove to be its top selling point for farmers.

“in Georgia, around atlanta, they’ve (recently) had to pay farmers not to irrigate,” Wright says. “if they adopted this system, they could keep going and (bring in their crops) using half the water.”

Saving Farm FamiliesBahia sod-rotation adds up to a formula for saving some-

thing far more important than crops, Wright says. he and his colleagues see the system they’ve developed, tested and re-tested as nothing less than a formula for saving farm fami-lies, which continue to decline at an alarming rate.

small farms served as the primary engine for the U.s. agricultural industry through most of the country’s history. But the numbers have been steadily falling since 1920. recent figures released by the non-profit advocacy group Farm aid show that on average 330 U.s. farmers leave their land each week, succumbing to financial pressures. of the country’s two million remaining farms, only about a quarter are considered family operations.

“From the start, one of our goals has been to develop a farm system that a young farmer could get into without having to have a huge tract of land and a million dollars’ worth of equip-ment,” Wright says.

By saving money on chemicals and the equipment and fuel required to apply them, farmers who adopt the bahia-sod system can expect to make a living farming as little as 200 acres, Wright believes.

“one of the biggest advantages in using this system is that you don’t have to have irri-

gation or use eight-row (harvesting) equipment to make it work,” Wright says. “once you get into a system like this, by your

fourth year you should be doing well. if you’re growing cotton and peanuts, you can make as much profit with this sod-based rotation in one year as you can in two to four with the standard rotation system.”

Could bahia sod conservation farming be the next “big thing” in agriculture? Wright thinks it’s possible. he sees the system as the next logical step after the technique known as conservation tillage — which deliberately leaves up to a third of crop debris in fields after harvest — finally caught on in the early 1980s. the technique helps fields stay rich in nutrients and retain water.

“it took us 20 years or more for conservation tillage to catch on, and i see this as the same thing,” he says. “this system works — we may not know exactly how it works, but we’ve shown that it does. our challenge now is to get people to understand it and put it to work.”

David WrightProfessor of agronomy, north Florida research and Education Center(850) [email protected]

Jim MaroisProfessor of Plant Pathology, north Florida research and Education Center(850) [email protected]

Related website:http://nfrec.ifas.ufl.edu/programs/sod_rotation.shtml

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Growing up, Colette Dziadul learned to “cook your meat well, wash your apples, and never leave anything with mayonnaise in it out in the sun.”

more than two pounds. The infant developed water on the brain and spent months in a neonatal intensive care unit.

Dana, Pam and Louisa are just a few of the 100,000 Ameri-cans hospitalized annually with a foodborne illness. An esti-mated 3,000 people die from these illnesses every year.

Cases like these illustrate the immense physical and social costs of foodborne illnesses, says Michael Batz, director of food safety programs at the University of Florida’s Emerging Patho-gens Institute and co-author of a new report on the riskiest combinations of foods and disease-causing microorganisms.

But until now, regulators and public health officials had no way of determining which pathogens, and pathogen-food com-binations, they should focus on.

So Batz and study co-authors Glenn Morris, director of the Emerging Pathogens Institute, and Sandra Hoffmann of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, created a new tool for rank-ing foodborne illnesses.

Report identifies riskiest combinations of foods and disease-causing microorganisms

So when her 3-year-old daughter Dana loaded up a plate with fresh cantaloupe at an Easter morning buffet 10 years ago, the safety of the fruit never crossed her mind.

Two weeks of high fever, stomach cramps and diarrhea later, doctors figured out that Dana had contracted a life-threatening case of food poisoning from Salmonella that has resulted in lifelong health issues. Detective work by federal and state public health officials ultimately determined the canta-loupe was the culprit.

For Pam Berger, it was turkey cold cuts she got from her local deli in Brooklyn, N.Y., that changed her life and the life of her then-unborn daughter Louisa.

Berger contracted Listeriosis from that sandwich and passed it along to Louisa, who was born premature, weighing slightly

Listeria Norovirus Salmonella

G

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The Foodborne Illness Risk Ranking Model — or FIRRM — measures such factors as hospitalization, doctor visits, lost wages and quality of life. By applying the formula to more than 10 years of data on foodborne illnesses and surveying nearly 50 public health experts, the researchers were able, for the first time, to identify the worst culprits.

The report concludes that 90 percent of the annual $14 bil-lion health burden can be attributed to just five pathogens — Campylobacter, Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes, Toxoplasma gondii, and norovirus. Even more important for the purpose of prevention, the analysis identified the foods most commonly contaminated by these pathogens. The researchers discovered that the top 10 pathogen-food combinations were responsible for more than $8 billion in medical costs, lost wages and sig-nificant loss of quality of life.

“We hear about outbreaks all of the time associated with various products and it lends a perception that there’s just contamination lurking in every corner,” Batz says. “But what we find is that … a relatively small number of these hazards account for a significantly large portion of the overall burden.”

The report, which was supported by a grant from the Rob-ert Wood Johnson Foundation, includes the following key findings and recommendations for food safety officials:

Poultry contaminated with Campylobacter bacteria topped the list, sickening more than 600,000 Americans at a cost of $1.3 billion per year. Salmonella in poultry also ranks in the Top 10, with $700 million due to costs of illness. Infections with these microorganisms can cause acute

illness such as vomiting but also can lead to hospitalization or death. Campylobacter infection can also cause paralysis and other neuromuscular problems.

Salmonella is the leading disease-causing bug overall, causing more than $3 billion in disease burden annually. In addition to poultry, Salmonella-contaminated produce, eggs and multi-ingredient foods all rank in the Top 10. The report recommends that the FDA and

USDA develop a joint Salmonella initiative that coordinates efforts in a number of foods.

“We hear about outbreaks all of the time associated with various products

and it lends a perception that there’s just contamination lurking in every corner.

But what we find is that … a relatively small number of these hazards account

for a significantly large portion of the overall burden.”—Michael Batz

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Four combinations in the Top 10 — Listeria in deli meats and soft cheeses, and Toxoplasma in pork and beef — pose serious risks to pregnant women and developing fetuses, causing stillbirth or infants born with irreversible mental and physical disabilities. The report recommends

that agencies strengthen prevention programs for these pathogens and improve

education efforts aimed at pregnant women.

Norovirus is the most common foodborne pathogen and is largely associated with multi-ingredient items that can become contaminated, often by service-industry workers who handle food. The researchers recommend strengthening state and local food safety programs through increased

funding, training and adoption by states of the most recent FDA Food Code.

The report lists E. coli O157:H7 as the sixth pathogen in overall burden, with the majority due to contaminated beef and produce. The report recommends federal agencies continue to target E. coli O157:H7, due to the particularly devastating injuries it causes

in small children, including kidney failure, lifetime health complications and death.

These Top 10 pathogen-food combinations cause the greatest burden to the public health, says a new report by researchers at the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogen Institute. The researchers ranked the combinations by calculating short- and long-term costs due to foodborne illness, as well as loss of quality adjusted life years (QALYs), a standardized measure used in public health to assess pain, suffering and other impacts to quality of life.

Pathogen-Food CombinationsCombined

RankQaLY Loss Cost iLLnesses

hosPitaL-izations

deaths

Campylobacter – Poultry 1 9,541 $1.3B 608,231 6,091 55

Toxoplasma – Pork 2 4,495 1.2B 35,537 1,815 134

Listeria – Deli Meats 3 3,948 1.1B 651 595 104

Salmonella – Poultry 4 3,610 $712M 221,045 4,159 81

Listeria – Dairy products 5 2,632 $724M 434 397 70

Salmonella – Complex foods 6 3,195 $630M 195,655 3,682 72

Norovirus – Complex foods 6 2,294 $914M 2,494,222 6,696 68

Salmonella – Produce 8 2,781 $548M 170,264 3,204 63

Toxoplasma – Beef 8 2,541 $689M 20,086 1,026 76

Salmonella – Eggs 10 1,878 $370M 115,003 2,164 42

totaL 36,915 $8.2b 3,861,128 29,830 765

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Morris says that a ranked list of the most costly foodborne illnesses will be a vital tool as the FDA implements the Food Safety Modernization Act signed into law by President Obama in January 2011.

“U.S. food safety regulators have often reacted to the crisis of the day rather than act in a coordinated fashion to prevent the next outbreak,” Morris says. “Virtually every major study on the growing problem of food safety has recommended that regulators shift to a risk-based, preventive way of doing busi-ness — one that could potentially identify a risky combination of a newly emerged strain and a popular food.”

Morris and Batz say that the global food production net-work presents safety challenges unheard of in the past.

“Food that used to come from the backyard or the orchard behind the house is now produced and shipped from thou-sands of miles away,” Morris says.

“Food can be contaminated anywhere from the farm to the fork,” Batz adds. “That could be somewhere halfway across the world or in the kitchen of a neighborhood restaurant.”

But while there’s little consumers can do about the early links in the food chain, Morris says there’s a lot they can do when the food arrives in their kitchens.

“While some food safety risks are outside of our control as consumers,” he says, “effective food safety practices — such as making sure you wash your hands frequently and using sepa-rate cutting boards and knives for meat and produce — can help to keep your family safe from foodborne illness.”

Michael BatzAssistant Director, Emerging Pathogens Institute(352) [email protected]

J. Glenn MorrisDirector, Emerging Pathogens Institute(352) [email protected]

Related website:http://www.epi.ufl.edu/?q=RankingTheRisks

1:61,000,000

AmericAnssick per year due to contaminated food.

H Hospital visitsper year due to contaminated FOOd.

ExpErts say thE FDa anD UsDa oFtEn work in a piEcEmEal Fashion, rEacting to thE oUtbrEak oF thE Day rathEr than taking stEps to prEvEnt saFEty problEms. thEy arE Urging thE FDa anD UsDa to aDopt a morE UniFiED, prEvEntativE anD risk-basED approach to thE most prEssing FooD saFEty problEms.

Number of deaths per

year due to contaminated

food.

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Finding:

a substantial amount of foodborne disease may be caused by improper food handling, storage and preparation in restaurants, cafeterias, deli counters and other professional kitchens.

Recommendation:

state and local efforts are a critical part of the national food safety system and should be strengthened by:

• Fully funding state and local inspection activities

• increasing adoption of the most recent FDa Food Code by states

• improving education and training of food work-ers and government inspectors

“Food can be contaminated anywhere from the farm to the fork. That could be somewhere halfway across the world or in the kitchen of a neighborhood restaurant.”

—Mike Batz

“U.S. food safety regulators have often reacted to the crisis of the day rather than act in a coordinated fashion to prevent the next outbreak. Virtually every major study on the growing problem of food safety has recommended that regulators shift to a risk-based, preventive way of doing business — one that could potentially identify a risky combination of a newly emerged strain and a popular food.”

—Glenn Morris

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elinda Quarterman spent her summer knocking on doors — 140 of them to be precise. In the heat of Florida’s summer sun, she roamed the rural neighborhoods of Ala-chua, High Springs, Worthington Springs and

Lake Butler to ask African-Americans questions about their oral health.

Quarterman was working as a surveyor for the Southeast Center for Research to Reduce Disparities in Oral Health. The survey sought to discover what keeps rural, minority and low-income people from getting screened for mouth and throat cancer.

According to recent data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), even though Caucasians are more likely to get oral cancer, African-Americans are more likely to die from it. About 61 percent of white men diagnosed with oral cancer are alive five years later, but only 36 percent of black men are, National Cancer Institute (NCI) statistics show. There’s some-thing wrong with that picture, experts say.

ing “Here is a highly curable cancer, and it’s killing a dispropor-

tionate amount of African-Americans,” says James Shepperd, the survey’s principal investigator and a psychology professor in UF’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The survey results affirmed just what researchers speculated — the need to increase awareness and screening among these populations.

“Some of the people hadn’t even heard of mouth or throat cancer,” Quarterman says.

Head and neck cancer includes cancer of the nose, lips, mouth, salivary glands, throat or larynx. It’s among the top five most common cancers among black men in the U.S., according to the NCI. Tobacco and alcohol use are the most significant risk factors, and 85 percent of oral cancers are linked to tobacco use. Other possible risk factors include sun exposure, human papillomavirus infection, radiation exposure and poor oral hygiene.

About 82 percent of people survive oral cancer when it’s caught early, statistics show. But most cases are not caught soon enough — about half are found after the disease has

MouthOff

BBy Kathryn Stolarz

ReseaRcheRs aRe helping bReak down baRRieRs to oRal health caRe among RuRal afRican-ameRican men

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MouthOff

Pastor Samuel Jones of Open Door Ministries in Gainesville is one of many community leaders involved in UF's efforts to encourage African-American men to be screened and get treatment for oral cancer.

By Kathryn Stolarz

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spread to lymph nodes and surrounding organs, and only about half of those diagnosed then survive past five years. The numbers get even worse for people diagnosed after the disease has spread to more distant organs.

The Southeast Center for Research to Reduce Disparities in Oral Health was established in October 2008 when College of Dentistry researcher Henrietta Logan received a $5.3 million NIH grant to fund community-based research and educate low-income, rural and minority citizens about head and neck cancer. The center’s goal is to increase detection and preven-tion of oral cancer among such populations. In its three years of existence, the center has become a magnet for investigators and a gold mine for related projects looking to address dispari-ties in oral health.

The center reached a milestone in April 2011 when the state of Florida and UF recognized it as an official research center, a move that will help expand collaboration across different areas of health care.

“This creates a higher profile for their activities but also encourages collaboration,” said Teresa Dolan, dean of the College of Dentistry. “By having researchers collaborate from a variety of disciplines, it will increase the likelihood of us finding a better understanding of what causes head and neck cancer and how to prevent the disease.”

Call To aCTion

Prior to the center’s work, little was known about the best ways to reach out to rural and minority communi-ties, Shepperd says. Having surveyed members of these

communities about why they don’t get oral cancer screenings, he believes he can use the data to break down barriers.

A simple, five-minute examination is all it takes to detect a possible problem, Shepperd says. During a screening, the screener looks for and asks about common oral cancer symp-toms, such as a lump, a continually sore throat, difficulty swallowing and a change in or hoarseness in voice. If cancer is suspected, patients are sent for further tests to determine if they have cancer.

Shepperd said there were three main reasons people said they hadn’t gotten screened: They had never heard of oral cancer or didn’t think it was important; they didn’t want to know if they had oral cancer; and they lacked resources, such as time and transportation, to get screened.

He plans to create persuasive messages that encourage people to get checked by tackling the barriers to screening.

Shepperd hopes to increase awareness by recruiting com-munity leaders to display messages on car magnets, and also to display messages on billboards and posters.

The center also aims to recruit community leaders to serve as role models to inspire others to get screened. Virginia

Tangalia Howard is screened for oral and

neck cancer as her son Jonathan Howard

watches. The screening was done at the Holistic

Health & Wellness Fair held at True Vine Outreach Ministry in

Starke, Fla.

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SomeTimeS a key To reaChing people Can be aS Simple aS Changing The way ThingS are deSCribed, like Telling paTienTS To geT CheCked or examined for oral CanCer inSTead of geTTing SCreened. To many people, SCreening meanS The wire meSh ThaT CoverS Their windowS, noT a CheCk for CanCer. — henrieTTa logan

Dodd, a primary investigator on one of the center’s studies, formed a community advisory committee of about a dozen people in Gadsden County, including church leaders, busi-ness owners, a cancer nurse and a radio personality, to help spread the word. Dodd is an assistant professor of health, education and behavior in UF’s College of Health and Human Performance.

“If we can learn how to produce messages that are mean-ingful, relevant and a call to action, I believe we can be effec-tive,” says Logan, a professor of community dentistry and behavioral sciences and the primary investigator on the grant that established the center.

Sometimes a key to reaching people can be as simple as changing the way things are described, like telling patients to get checked or examined for oral cancer instead of getting screened, Logan says. To many people, screening means the wire mesh that covers their windows, not a check for cancer.

making an impaCT

Beyond Shepperd and Dodd’s groundbreaking work, the center funded a study by Joseph Riley III, an assistant professor of community dentistry and behavioral sci-

ence. Riley carried out a rural media campaign that promoted oral cancer screenings, also funded by an NIH grant.

The center’s researchers have already involved more than 3,400 community members in research and produced about 30 publications, posters, abstracts and presentations. Five dis-tinguished members also have spoken at faculty and graduate student assemblies.

The center has been able to accomplish so much because it offers its researchers valuable resources, Shepperd says. Experts are available to help with planning and submitting grants; budgeting and monitoring research and reporting progress. In addition, a community liaison connects investigators to research participants, and the center has a close relationship with the NIH’s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.

Beyond its research accomplishments, Logan said she and her team are proud of the positive effect the center has had on the community. The center has a thriving community advisory board that seeks input from numerous community leaders, from church leaders to politicians.

The center has provided $300,000 to participating commu-nities throughout north-central Florida by creating local jobs, giving incentives to research participants and compensating local vendors. Through a collaboration with the College of Dentistry, about 40 UF dental students have been trained to perform free head and neck cancer screenings for rural com-munities in North Florida, and the center has participated in about 100 area health fairs.

Henrietta Logan of UF’s Southeast Center for Research to Reduce Disparities in Oral Health hands out lip balm to Reginald Jackson and Duabiel Jackson at the Holistic Health & Wellness Fair.M

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At the August community advisory board meeting, member Cynthia Moore Chestnut told Logan, “You have really built communication with the community and you have listened and you have empowered.”

moving forward

In Bradford County, community advisory board member Ross Chandler led several satellite community meet-ings to find out more about people’s concerns and why

they don’t get screened for the disease. He said some of the obstacles community members voiced were a lack of trust, a lack of insurance, a fear of finding out something is wrong with them and a lack of funds to pay medical bills.

“It has brought a tremendous amount of awareness about mouth and throat cancer. It’s brought a tremendous level of understanding about it,” Chandler says. “Because of that awareness, many of the people here have been able to com-municate their frustrations with health-care services and the lack thereof and why many African-Americans don’t seek medical help and are afraid of going to the doctors.”

Although it’s based out of Gainesville, the center involves satellite clinics and rural communities throughout the state and has branched into dozens of projects geared toward reducing disparities.

For example, researchers have established a saliva bank that has already collected about 75 samples and supplemental health data about subjects that will help predict health disparities.

The center is also participating in a five-year, $1 million Health Resources and Services Administration-funded project interviewing low-income and minority adolescent boys to iden-tify what promotes risky behavior and what keeps them from seeking dental and medical care.

Research assistant Cameron Brown began surveying partici-pants and found finances and transportation to be commonly mentioned barriers to regular dental and medical care.

“There’s a lot of important research coming out of the center that will benefit Gainesville, Fla., and the U.S. in gen-eral,” Brown says.

In September center staff took part in a health fair in Starke, doing screenings and helping spread the word about oral cancer. It’s the type of thing they do regularly. For many of the people the center is trying to reach — folks who have limited access to physicians and limited funds to pay — these screenings can literally be a lifesaver.

“Knowledge is power,” says Cynthia Agyemang, the center’s community liaison for northern Alachua and Bradford coun-ties. “If we can get the message out about mouth and throat cancer, it’s saving someone’s life.”

Virginia DoddAssociate Professor, Department of Health Education and Behavior(352) [email protected]

Henrietta LoganProfessor, Department of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Science (352) 273-5965  [email protected] 

Joseph Riley IIIAssistant Professor, Department of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Science (352) 273-5966  [email protected] 

James A. ShepperdR. David Thomas Endowed Legislative Professor, Department of Psychology(352) [email protected]

Related website:http://www.dental.ufl.edu/offices/takethebite/

“knowledge iS power, if we Can geT The meSSage

ouT abouT mouTh and ThroaT CanCer, iT’S Saving

Someone’S life.”

— CynThia agyemang

Henrietta Logan, a professor of community dentistry and behav-

ioral sciences in the College of Dentistry, talks to Taquandra

Diggs about dental health.

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See a denTiST or phySiCian if any of The following SympTomS laSTS for more Than Two weekS.

• A sore, irritation, lump or thick patch in your mouth, lip, or throat

• A white or red patch in your mouth

• A feeling that something is caught in your throat

• Difficulty chewing or swallowing

• Difficulty moving your jaw or tongue

• Numbness in your tongue or other areas of your mouth

• Swelling of your jaw that causes dentures to fit poorly or become uncomfortable

• Pain in one ear without hearing loss

This article originally appeared in The Post, the newsletter of the UF Health Science Center

Christina Monford, a College of Dentistry student, teaches 3-year-old Zachary Sanon how to properly brush his teeth.

Shannon Mroz right, is screened for oral and neck cancer.

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What do you think makes the Univer-sity of Florida uniquely positioned to be successful in the 21st century?

The thing that makes the University of Florida unique is that our researchers can find collaborators in virtually every discipline right on campus. In addition to having agriculture, the health sciences, engineering and liberal arts and sciences, we also have one of the 28 veterinary schools in America, and we have a dental school and a public health school. So all of those pieces come together to make the University of Florida a unique institution and I think the best poised to seize the research opportunities and needs of this nation in the future.

When you became vice president for research in 1999, UF’s research awards totaled $301 million. Last year they were $619 million. To what do you attribute this dramatic increase in UF’s research enterprise?

I think there are two critical elements. The first is that the university set research as an agenda. We said that we really believe our faculty should be at the forefront of their discipline. So adopt-ing this philosophy that research was

everybody’s business, that increased the size of the army.

Then when Bernie Machen became president he made a commitment to build new space specifically devoted to research, and that was a commitment that we had never had before.

All of those things put together made the research program boom. We were already a major research university, now we’re a noticed major research university.

UF’s technology commercialization efforts have also grown dramatically during your tenure. How do you think the role of universities in economic development has changed over the last decade and how do you think UF is performing in this area?

The 1980 Bayh-Dole Act was very important for universities because it said they could own the patents and seek to license inventions resulting from government-funded research.

The University of Florida embraced that opportunity right away because we are very diverse and interdisciplinary and we have some of the most creative people in the world. Over the last decade we have grown our technology licensing

office so we could more effectively mine our research enterprise and be sure we weren’t leaving things that could be licensed on the table, hidden in the labo-ratory. In the beginning the only reason we were able to invest like that was because we had the royalty income from Trusopt (a glaucoma drug) and Gatorade.

Gatorade is a real example of someone doing basic inquiry, looking to solve a problem and “Eureka!” comes out of it. So our faculty are a little more encouraged by the fact that what they’re doing may look like pretty basic science, but it might also produce something that’s really useful to mankind. I think most faculty are driven more by the fact that they’ve contributed to something useful to mankind than they are the profit motive.

The recently opened Florida Innova-tion Hub is the cornerstone of one of the university’s biggest initiatives right now, Innovation Square. What do you envision for Innovation Square and our technology incubator efforts?

There are two great advantages of incubators the way we have developed them. These companies need a place to grow from idea to a point where they have enough production that they can build a facility. If the ability to rent space with laboratories was not available, a lot of these companies would never get started.

UF Vice President for Research Win Phillips recently assumed a new role as the university’s senior vice president and chief operating officer. Explore Editor Joseph Kays sat down recently with Dr. Phillips to discuss his 12 years as the leader of UF’s research enterprise and discuss the future of research at the university.

Dr. Win Phillips

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But an incubator also creates a community of people with like problems who can share resources like attorneys and accountants that you need to get your business started. The CEOs of these small companies meet regularly and can say “Well golly, I’ve got this problem. How did you solve this prob-lem?” So instead of reinventing the wheel they get free advice.

With Innovation Square we’ve got a fascinating point of presence that’s in an interesting part of town, connected to the community, in a space that can accept other buildings. It’s getting national interest, and venture capital-ists read the news. So there are lots of reasons why this process has evolved into a very healthy situation for a town like Gainesville.

In the late 1990s UF began increasing its graduate student enrollment and now awards more than 3,700 master’s and 950 doctoral degrees annually. Why do you think graduate students are important to both the research and teaching missions of the university?

When your small child learns to talk and begins to interact with the world, they drive you crazy because they only have one question, “Why?” Everything you say, they say “Why?” And it makes you think of an answer.

The same thing is true with gradu-ate students and their faculty mentors. They ask about the relevance of your research, the application of your research, the place where it’s going to go, what it means. When they are assigned an exper-iment their creative mind says “What about this? Why not that?” Many times research leads to unexpected results that are very beneficial.

As a faculty member, having graduate students come in every day with bright ideas, irrelevant ideas, rascal questions, that don’t make any sense at first blush, but then all of a sudden cause you to reflect on those questions and integrate them into your thinking, that’s the unique thing about university research.

The average parent of an undergradu-ate student might not fully appreciate the connection between research and their child’s education. Why do you think research is important to the undergraduate experience?

My philosophy has always been that you want your kids to have the most knowledgeable faculty member they can have, faculty who are teaching tomor-row’s science today. And, by the way, being knowledgeable and being at the forefront of your research does not mean that you’re less of a teacher, it means you’re more of a teacher. It’s much better to have Einstein talking about physics than some guy who’s read a book about physics talking about physics.

It’s important for the University of Florida as the flagship institution of the state of Florida to provide its sons and daughters the most competitive education possible, so that when they come out of here they’re ready to deal with today’s world, which is a very complex world.

What do you think are the greatest challenges to the university’s research enterprise?

I think one of our greatest challenges is maintaining imagination and creativity when the constant pressures of budget and regulation consume time and energy and create distractions. We’ve tried to create an infrastructure that takes some of that burden off of the individual faculty member.

In times of economic stress there is no reason for creativity to diminish. Some of the greatest creations in the world came along in the Depression. Creativity doesn’t go up and down with recession, as long as government and society don’t place such a burden on it that it can’t happen.

What have been your most satisfying achievements during your tenure at the University of Florida?

I think seeing the research program grow, seeing our faculty seize the oppor-tunities in research and contribute to the needs of the nation has been particularly satisfying. We committed to growing the research enterprise and the faculty responded. To have been a part of that in some small way is my most satisfying achievement.

Dr. Wolfgang Sigmund and doctoral student Shu-Hau Hsu

Florida Innovation Hub at UF

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