April 7, 1999 This year, the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research recognizes 10 campus researchers as principal investigators on grants that total $1 million or more. They are among 793 UIC scientists whose research brough in $97 million in grant and contract expenditures for the 1998 fiscal year.
DAVID BRADDOCK
Head of Disability and Human Development
Even in a career of extraordinary achievements, 1998 stands out as exceptional for David Braddock.
He played a central role in establishing his new department and a joint Ph.D. program in disability studies, both launched last fall.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded Braddock a $3.1 million grant over four years to establish the National Center on Physical Activity and Disability.
The center will analyze international studies on physical activity and disability, then develop and publicize their research throughout the nation.
Braddock is also principal investigator on several other multi-year grants, including the Demographics and Financing of Developmental Disability Services in the United States, a grant the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research has funded since 1982.
With this grant, Braddock has produced his most influential research: a comparative study of services and resources in all 50 states and the federal government for people with disabilities and their families.
His longitudinal study over 20 years has become a benchmark by which all states are judged.
-- Jody Oesterreicher
JUDITH COOK
Director, Mental Health Services Research Program
Through the Mental Health Services Research Program, Judith Cook focuses on helping people with psychiatric illness live in their community after hospitalization.
The mental health program she directs includes three federally funded centers and a number of research and evaluation studies.
The National Research and Training Center on Psychiatric Disability provides training and technical assistance to promote employment for people with mental illness.
Over almost a decade, Cook and the staff have developed more than three dozen curricula and manuals in such areas as community safety for women with mental illness; collaboration between service providers; vocational transitions for youth with severe emotional disorders; and outreach to minority families of persons with mental illness.
The mental services program includes a coordinating center for a national initiative called the Employment Intervention Program, which studies the best ways for people with severe mental disabilities to return to work.
The project is looking at different types of vocational rehabilitation models around the country, tracking them over two years to find the programs that work best.
The project will help low-income, unemployed people with mental illness, most supported by Social Security disability benefits.
The third coordinating center is studying the effects of managed care on children's mental health and substance abuse services.
The multi-state study is looking at outcomes, costs and services for 4- to 18-year-olds treated in by managed care versus fee-for-service.
"This is the kind of complex information needed to answer major health care questions that now affect children's lives," said Cook, professor of sociology in psychiatry.
Cook directs the evaluation of the Illinois site of the national ACCESS program. ACCESS studies homeless people with mental illness and runs a statewide Assertive Community Treatment Training Institute for Illinois health care providers.
THOMAS DEFANTI
Co-director, Electronic Visualization Laboratory
Some people know Thomas DeFanti as the man who produced computer-generated effects for the 1977 "Star Wars" film -- a 45-second sequence with the Deathstar, in the movie's final action scene.
Others know him as the co-director of UIC's Electronic Visualization Laboratory. His team developed a box-like room known as the "Cave," where users immerse themselves in virtual reality. Across Illinois and beyond, he's known as one of THE experts on specialized computer networks that allow researchers to collaborate and visualize complex data with unprecedented ease.
DeFanti, professor of electrical engineering and computer science since 1988, was UIC's first computer science faculty member. He says the university "didn't quite know" what to make of him at first, but by 1989 his appointment as a University Scholar reflected his pre-eminence in an established field.
He is working on a National Science Foundation-supported project to develop virtual reality and visualization environments as tools for scientific investigation, expression and education. This involves combining several branches of rapidly evolving computing -- data processing, data storage and retrieval, visualization, shared memory access and high-bandwidth or high-speed networks.
The main contribution of this research will be a "truly integrated approach" to the use of computational networks for computational science and engineering applications.
Besides research and administrative duties at UIC and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in Urbana, DeFanti helps keep others abreast of developments in computer graphics and virtual reality technology by editing print publications and an unusual video publication, the "SIGGRAPH Video Review."
DeFanti serves on the council of technology advisers to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. The council's goals: to help fund information technology firms based in Chicago; and to provide high-speed telecommunications to every residence, business and institution in the city.
-- Leila Belkora
BRIAN FLAY
Director, Health Policy Research Centers
Brian Flay, an expert on the science of prevention and health promotion, has devoted his professional life to tackling one of the most complex public health challenges: changing human behavior.
His research focuses on preventing violence, unsafe sex and substance use among disadvantaged urban adolescents.
As director of what was then called the Prevention Research Center in the School of Public Health, Flay brought the Aban Aya Youth Project to more than a dozen public elementary schools on Chicago's West and South sides. The goal of the National Institutes of Health-funded project was to evaluate a school-based program that promoted abstinence from sex and taught students how to avoid drugs and alcohol and resolve conflicts without violence.
In 1998, Flay obtained funding to extend the project, which now covers fifth through 10th grade.
The project added increased parent involvement, peer monitoring, school staff training and a task force to forge links with the community.
-- Jody Oesterreicher
TIMOTHY JOHNSON
Director, Survey Research Laboratory
A year with $1 million dollars in research funding is "routine" for the Survey Research Laboratory, said director Timothy Johnson.
"The credit goes not to me, but to our strong team of researchers," he said.
In the last 12 months, the Survey Research Laboratory has conducted research for more than 50 studies.
The topics are varied:
Substance abuse
- drug and alcohol use by welfare recipients, mental health patients, persons on probation and the general public
- the role played by primary care physicians in detecting and treating substance abuse among their patients
Employment
-the effects of job loss on displaced workers
- the human resources practices of large organizations
Criminal justice
- evaluation of the Cook County Victim-Witness Assistance Program
- general public opinion on crime issues
Education
- community library and public school evaluations
- public opinion on higher education
Community
- Public Housing conditions
- public experiences with Community Area Policing in Chicago
- homelessness in Illinois
- gambling in Illinois
Health
- health insurance coverage
- attitudes and behaviors related to smoking cessation and nutrition
- assessments of new health survey measurement tools.
PAUL LAUTERBUR
Director, Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Laboratory
Paul Lauterbur, professor of bioengineering, biophysics, medical information science and chemistry, is a pioneer in the development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Director of the biomedical laboratory since 1985, he was one of the first scientists to see the potential of MRI in health care.
Now, MRI scanners are routinely used to safely diagnose diseases of the head and neck, spinal cord, pelvic organs, heart and joints without using invasive surgery or potentially harmful X-rays.
Lauterbur's most recent work in MRI has enabled scientists to locate regions of the brain containing key nerve cells, a development that could help unlock the secrets of sight, hearing, movement, emotions and thought.
Lauterbur is working on new techniques for imaging and spectroscopy, especially for human brain function. He is using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) microscopy to study brain function through three-dimensional display, manipulation of images and nuclear magnetic relaxation of magnetic particles and molecules.
-- Amanda Mazur
JOHN PEZZUTO
Associate dean, Pharmacy Research and Graduate Education
John Pezzuto has an impressive track record for finding plants that prevent cancer.
He and his research team made promising discoveries as they tested nearly 1,000 plants.Their 1996 revelation that resveratrol -- found in red wine, grapes and other foods -- may prevent cancer made headline news throughout the world.
The researchers conducted their first tests with a compound extracted from a legume collected in Peru. After the compound showed promise, they identified the active agent as resveratrol, a surprise because it occurs in more than 70 plants, Pezzuto said.
In tests with mice, the researchers found resveratrol was effective against three major stages of cancer development.
Pezzuto's multidisciplinary team includes researchers from oncology, chemistry, and mathematics, statistics and computer science.-- Jody Oesterreicher
KENNETH RICH
Director, Perinatal Aids Program
Kenneth Rich has been treating children with HIV since the disease first appeared in the early 1980s.
He is the lead investigator in Chicago for the National Institutes of Health-funded Women and Infants Transmission Study, the largest project in the United States to focus on HIV in expectant mothers, women, infants and young children.
The research suggested that babies are usually infected with HIV during delivery, leading to studies that showed properly-timed treatments with the drug AZT dramatically reduce transmission rates.
The project discovered techniques for diagnosing infant infection up to a year earlier than was previously possible.
Rich, professor of pediatrics and immunology, says the study has yielded a greater understanding of the disease's progression.
"We have defined the risk factors for transmission, defined the natural history of HIV in women in pregnancy and post-partum, and defined the natural history of HIV in children early in life."
In addition to research, the study helps find pregnant women infected with HIV and ensure they and their children receive care.
More than 400 women and 300 infants are enrolled in the Chicago study.
"The results of the epidemiologic studies led directly to therapeutic advances in preventing the transmission of HIV infection from mother to infant.
The prevention of infection and death in these infants is an example of the best outcome achieved through cooperation between participants in the studies and the many researchers involved at UIC and nationally," Rich said.
PATRICK TOLAN
Director of Research
Institute for Juvenile Research
Patrick Tolan, with colleagues Deborah Gorman-Smith and David Henry, study the development of children and families in inner-city urban neighborhoods.
Their research works to help prevent violence, encourage success in school and strengthen families.Tolan is working on three main projects.
The Metropolitan Area Child Study is a large-scale prevention effort to test how school, peer group and family interventions work in different types of urban communities to promote social competence and prevent antisocial behavior. The project, an ongoing eight-year collaboration by six investigators and more than 100 staff members, focuses on elementary school children.
The second project, SAFE Children (Schools and Families Educating Children), works to help families in impoverished neighborhoods make a smooth transition when their child enters first grade. The study provides the child with family and academic support to reduce risk for later school failure, drug use and antisocial behavior.
The final project, the Chicago Youth Development Study, has tracked families of boys living in the inner city for the past eight years.
Tolan and the research team are studying how these young men -- 11 to 13 years old when the study started -- make the transition to work and marriage.
The project has expanded to include interviews with the subjects' girlfriends and will study their development as parents.
These studies are funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Tolan is involved in the Chicago Project for Violence Prevention and Children's HOPE, collaborations with community and government to use these research findings in prevention programs.
RICHARD WARNECKE
Director, Health Policy Center
Center for Health Services Research
Health care services that prevent illness are of little help if they are inaccessible to the public.
Richard Warnecke, director of two of the five centers in UIC's Health Research and Policy Centers, works to ensure public health is practiced practically.
As a professor of sociology, epidemiology and biostatistics, urban planning and public affairs, and a research professor in the Survey Research Laboratory, Warnecke follows a broad array of research.
Smoking cessation and cancer prevention have been mainstays of his 30-year academic career.
In 1998, Warnecke received National Cancer Institute funding to expand predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowship programs in applied research and evaluation for cancer prevention and control.
The expansion will "create a critical mass giving vitality to the program and promoting beneficial interaction between fellows and participating faculty leading to a stronger campus-wide cancer control and prevention research training effort," he said.
-- Jody Oesterreicher
