May 28 & 30, 2003 Highlights
Utah
State University Chemistry Department Research Recognized in
National Journal
Members of the Utah State University chemistry department
have now been published in the Journal of the American Chemical
Society. Lance Seefeldt, professor of chemistry and biochemistry
at Utah State, lead a team in conceiving the plan to determine
whether or not the interstitial atom of the Nitrogenase FeMo-cofactor
is exchangeable or not. Seefeldt, along with colleagues from
Northwestern University in Chicago and Virginia Tech, determined
that the interstitial atom is not exchangeable.
"Nitrogen is critical to all living organisms, but Nitrogen
itself has to go through some changes before it can be useful
to a living creature," said Seefeldt. "The finding
we made helps us further understand this process."
To be published in the Journal of the American Chemistry
Society the work must be considered of pressing importance,
and Seefeldt said findings this important do not come without
a lot of hard work.
Besides the time needed to conceive a plan for the actual experiment,
many samples have to be prepared. Robert Igarashi, a graduate
student in the chemistry department, prepared all of the samples
(isotopes) for this particular study. After initial work by
Utah State, the samples were mailed to Northwestern, and work
was continued by the other contributing universities.
"This is an example of how collaboration with the best
teams in the country can accomplish important things,"
said Seefeldt.
Utah
State Extension in Millard County:
A
Caring Community
 "We
have all the problems that urban areas have – low income
families, children of divorce, kids being raised by relatives,
adopted kids, some with one or both parents in prison –
it's all here," says Jackie Nielsen, coordinator of Extension's
Youth and Families with Promise (YFP) program. "What we
don't have is access to resources that urban areas have, so
we have had to rely on our high school seniors to become mentors
to at-risk youth."
The program is designed to address youth problems through early
intervention with a mentor. The youth ages 11-14 also attend
monthly Family Night Out activities that include their parents.
"The bottom line is that we want to do anything to help
these kids succeed, and we don't have a lot of resources that
other urban areas have," says Kirtt Myers, Delta Middle
School counselor. "We don't have Big Brothers and Sisters
programs and other resources that urban areas have. We have
YFP and we have sports. I'm starting to see grades go up just
by being involved in YFP.
"What has been great is that the program focuses not only
on the youth but the parents as well. They get 80-90 parents
and youth out to these Family Night Out activities and we are
starting to see a lot of enthusiasm throughout the community,"
Myers concluded.
To find out more about Millard
County, click
here. For more about Extension in other counties take the
Extension
tour of Utah.
utah
state today/archives/May
2003/archives
prior to Sept 2002/
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to you by Utah State University Public Relations and Marketing
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