Diversity in action	Photos by Nathan Robinson
At right, the Rev. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., is greeted by Frank Hale Jr., left, distinguished University representative and consultant, and Mac Stewart, interim vice provost for minority affairs. King spoke on campus Jan. 10 as part of Ohio State's observance of Martin Luther King Day, which also featured a day of service on Jan. 15. The theme of the joint University-city celebration was "Community or Chaos: Where Do We Go From Here?"
	Paul Kivel, left, continues discussion after speaking on "Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice" Jan. 11 as part of the President and Provost's Diversity Lecture Series. The series this year highlights many effective programs for recruitment of minority faculty, staff and students. Five lecturers are scheduled to visit Ohio State in February for three series events covering topics ranging from the legacy of Malcolm X to HIV/AIDS among African Americans to recruitment of minorities in science and engineering. All lectures are videotaped and are available for viewing on the Web. For more series information, visit the University's diversity Web site at www.osu.edu/diversity and watch for notices in future issues of onCampus.

Agreement could hasten understanding of human genome

The discoveries of how the individual components of the human genome affect human health should be accelerated thanks to a partnership between Ohio State researchers, the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) and the makers of a unique software program designed to decipher our genetic code.

Last summer, federal officials announced that they had nearly completed the mapping of the entire human genome. But until researchers "annotate" the genome -- disassemble its pieces and link them to the biological function they control -- the value of that mapping will be limited.

Since the genome is thought to contain at least 50,000 individual genes -- if not more -- and 3 billion chemical base pairs in the DNA, the challenge of finding the needles in this biological haystack is daunting.

That's where a new agreement between Ohio State, the Ohio Supercomputer Center and LabBook Inc. comes in. The three have joined forces to speed up the annotation process by linking LabBook's unique software approach with OSC's ability to analyze the massive amounts of data contained in the genome map.

Key players in this arrangement are scientists with OSU's Human Cancer Genetics Program (HCGP), who are developing strategies to target those parts of the genome most likely to provide the key information necessary to improve human health and perhaps treat, or even prevent, disease.

The agreement gives HCGP researchers and others at the University access to LabBook's software platform and to its growing database of genetic information as they look for the distinct causes of genetic cancers. The software allows them to search for specific patterns among the millions of base pairs in DNA that might signal either a potential cause or cure for disease.

"Our database and the way we deliver it to scientists represents an important advance in extracting meaningful information from the human genome data," said Shawn Green, chief executive officer at LabBook.

Albert de la Chapelle, director of the Human Cancer Genetics Program, agrees that the software tool should expedite the search for vital information buried within the genome.

"The speed with which we can attack the problems of genetic disease depends in large part on how easily we can analyze and manipulate the enormous amount of data involved. This partnership should aid us enormously in finding the answers we're seeking and having an impact on quelling human disease," he said.

An important part of the partnership is an agreement by LabBook to support five postdoctoral fellowships at Ohio State. Applicants for two of the fellowships will be sought immediately, and three more should be recruited this fall.

OSU makes list of top 50 scientific discoveries

Results from an expedition made late last year by glaciologists at Ohio State have been included in Discover magazine's list of the 50 most important scientific discoveries of the year 2000.

The magazine looked at findings by researchers from around the world in the fields of genetics, space, physics, medicine, paleontology, ancient life, evolution, environment, biology, geology and other areas. Since its beginnings, the magazine has provided an annual listing of the most important advances in science reported in that year.

Discover focused on the work of Lonnie Thompson, a professor of geological sciences and researcher with the Byrd Polar Research Center, and his colleagues at Ohio State.

Thompson led an international expedition to the Dasuopu glacier high in the Himalayas to drill through ice fields near its summit.

The magazine quoted Thompson saying, "We now have a record from 23,500 feet in the atmosphere (about as high as instruments are carried in a weather balloon), one that has been preserved naturally, that shows the last 50 years were warmer than any other equivalent period in the last 1,000 years."

Thompson, his partner Ellen Mosley Thompson, professor of geography, and their colleagues have spent more than two decades drilling cores through ice caps and glaciers throughout the world.

Analyses of gas content, particulates, nitrates, dust and other indicators allow them to paint a clear picture of what the climate was like when the ice was formed. And since the ice is produced in annual layers, it creates a chronological record of ancient climate.

The team's studies have yielded climate records from five continents, including some stretching back more than 100,000 years and through many ice ages. By comparing these records to those of the top-most layers of these cores, they hope to get a picture of how modern climate is changing, including clues to possible global warming and other planetary climate events.

The work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, NASA and others.